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PAUL'S DOCTRINE OF 
REDEMPTION 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

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PAUL'S DOCTRINE OF 
REDEMPTION 



BY 



HENRY BEACH CARRE, B.D., Ph.D. 

PROFESSOR OF BIBLICAL THEOLOGY AND ENGLISH 
EXEGESIS, VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
1914 






Copyright, 1914 
By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 



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PREFACE 

In the preface to his recent book, 1 Schweitzer 
reaffirms the conclusion announced by him in his 
previous work, 2 which was that the proper under- 
standing of Jesus is arrived at only by a thor- 
ough-going application to the interpretation of 
the Gospels of the principle of eschatology, based 
exclusively upon "the contemporary Apocalyp- 
tic." He believes that, in his faithful application 
of this principle to these sources, he has "created 
a new fact upon which to base the history of 
dogma." 3 The next task, he thinks, is to "de- 
fine the position of Paul," which in this connec- 
tion means to determine whether the Apostle to 
the Gentiles represents the "first stage of the 
Hellenizing process," which the history of dogma 

1 Schweitzer, Geschichte der paulinischen Forschung, 
Tubingen, 191 1. Eng. tr., Paul and His Interpreters. A 
Critical History, London, 19 12. 

2 Schweitzer, von Reimarus zu Wrede, Tubingen. 1906. 
Eng. tr., The Quest of the Historical Jesus, London, 1910. 

3 Geschichte der paulinischen Forschung, p. viii. Eng. 
tr., p. ix. 

vii 



Vlll PREFACE 

discloses, or whether Paul is essentially at one 
with the Jewish-eschatological thought of primi- 
tive Christianity. He thinks the latter alterna- 
tive to be the correct one, and, in view of it, 
promises the public within a short time a "new 
formulation of the problem of Paulinism," under 
the title, "The Pauline Mysticism." 

The important place given to eschatology by 
Schweitzer will doubtless help materially to our 
understanding of Paul, but it will not of itself 
furnish the solution of the problem which Paul- 
inism presents to the historical interpreter. 
Eschatology was only one item in Paul's thought, 
albeit a very important one. It has to do with 
a great catastrophic event in the near future and 
with important and far-reaching cosmic happen- 
ings connected therewith. 

While it is evident that Paul thought of all 
things as moving toward this eschatological mo- 
ment, it is also clear that, as far as men were 
concerned, the future life was irrevocably con- 
ditioned on what transpired in this life. It is 
essential, therefore, that one present the eschat- 
ology of Paul as being of a piece with his entire 
world philosophy. It grows out of, and is the 



PREFACE IX 

logical sequel to, all that has gone before. To 
look at the end without having regard to the 
beginning as well as to the period between the 
beginning and the end is to misunderstand Paul. 

The present study is an attempt to interpret 
the Apostle from the standpoint of his world 
philosophy. We believe that we have given to 
eschatology its proper proportion and signifi- 
cance, while, at the same time, we have under- 
taken to show that the redemption of man, as 
Paul conceived it, was inseparably connected 
with the redemption of the cosmos, and that the 
same principles which underlie the world's re- 
demption are at work in the redemption of man- 
kind. Man's salvation is a chapter of cosmical 
history, as it unfolded itself to the dualism of 
Paul. 

A word touching the manner of treatment. 
Only here and there, and that incidentally, have 
we indicated the probable extra-Biblical sources 
of Paul's ideas. The question touching the 
sources of Paul's ideas is a large one, and the 
materials for its study are as yet in a chaotic 
condition. However, enough is already known 
to leave no room for doubt that Paul did his 



X PREFACE 

work in a highly syncretic environment. This 
fact, taken along with his mental alertness and 
his highly sensitive nature, makes it very prob- 
able that he was, in no small degree, influenced 
by the strong thought-currents of his day. 

No attempt has been made to determine the 
significance of the sacraments for the Pauline 
soteriology. The problem of the sacraments is 
complex and connected with the one just men- 
tioned. It requires extended treatment. Its omis- 
sion has not materially affected, we believe, our 
results. The sacraments had to do in some way 
with the appropriation of salvation by the be- 
liever. They did not affect the fact of salvation, 
or determine the means through which it was 
achieved by the Redeemer. It is with these latter 
questions that we are most concerned in this 
investigation. 

The present discussion is based almost exclu- 
sively upon the ten more generally accepted let- 
ters of Paul, which are regarded as alike Paul- 
ine. For purposes of comparison a few refer- 
ences have been made to the Pastorals. The use 
of the Pauline material is not indicative of the 
writer's views touching special questions of 



PREFACE XI 

authorship. At the same time, he has been care- 
ful to see that every important conclusion is 
adequately supported by the well attested letters 
of Paul. It is worthy of notice that the inter- 
pretation of the leading ideas of these unques- 
tioned letters from the standpoint of cosmology 
has disclosed a greater homogeneity of thought 
underlying them and the so-called Christological 
letters, than it is customary to recognize. If 
this fact has any bearing on the problems of 
New Testament Introduction, it is an indirect 
and unintended result of this study. 

The writer desires to thank the members of 
the Faculty of the New Testament Department 
of the University of Chicago for many helpful 
courtesies. Especially to Professor C. W. Votaw 
is he indebted for invaluable aid both in the 
preparation of the manuscript and in the read- 
ing of the proof. 

For the compiling of the Index of Scripture 
References the author is indebted to his wife. 

Henry Beach Carre. 

Chicago, ///., .August, 191 3. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Preface vii 

CHAPTER 

I. The World-view of Paul .... i 

II. The Necessity and Character of 

Cosmic Redemption 22. 

III. Cosmic Redemption through the 

Death and Resurrection of the 
Redeemer 49 

IV. The Cosmic Power of the Re- 

deemer Manifest in the Life of 
Believers 116 

V. The Redeemer and the Consum- 
mation of the Redemptive Pro- 
gram 135 

Selected Bibliography 163 

Index of Scripture References . 169 



CHAPTER I 

THE WORLD-VIEW OF PAUL 

Paul had a philosophy of the universe, which 
went back to the beginning of things, and ac- 
counted for the existence of the world. At one 
with the Jewish thought of his day on this point, 4 
he regarded the world as God's creation. 5 As a 
Christian, he went beyond this, and conceived of 
Christ as being, in some undescribed way, the 
Creator of all things. 6 Paul's philosophy was 
practical, not speculative. He was not, so far 
as his letters show, greatly interested in the meta- 
physical and speculative questions regarding the 
origin of the universe of matter, with which 

4 See Bousset, Die Religion des Judentums im neu- 
testamentlichen Zeitalter, Berlin, 2 Aufl., 1906, 410 f. 

5 Rom. 1:25; 8:20; Eph. 3:9. 

e Col. 1:15-20. It is perhaps not permissible to limit 
"All things" (v. 16) to the spiritual beings enumerated 
here. But their enumeration and the omission of any 
reference to the world of matter points strongly to the 
probability that the important point of difference between 
Paul and the false teachers at Colosse had to do with 
the relation of Christ to these world-powers. 

1 



2 PAULS DOCTRINE OF REDEMPTION 

philosophy, that of his day and that of later 
times, has been concerned. He was interested 
in man's redemption from the evils of the present 
world and in his eternal blessedness. 

His interest in the cosmos 7 took its start from 
those events that occasioned the misfortunes 
from which man needs to be saved. His interest 
ended with those happenings in the future which 
mark the final stages in the redemptive program. 
With the Parousia, the Resurrection of the 
Saints, the Judgment, and those events that were 

7 The sense in which the word cosmos (kootxos) is 
used in this investigation is a well-established usage in 
Paul. He views the cosmos from two standpoints. At 
times he thinks of the material universe, the world of 
matter (Rom. 1:20; 1 Cor. 3:22; 8:4; Eph. 1:4). Again 
he has in mind more particularly the world of intelli- 
gences which inhabit the cosmos. These include (a) 
men whose abode is the earth, (b) intermediary beings, 
who inhabit both the lower and the superterrestrial 
regions (Rom. 3:6; 1 Cor. 4:9; 6:2, 3; Col. 2:20, with 
"elements"). It is not always possible to tell with cer- 
tainty just what particular meaning Paul has in mind. It 
may be possible to include other passages in the lists 
given. In addition to these two significations, which are 
the ones of most concern to us in this study, Paul uses 
the word cosmos for the earth proper (Rom. 1:8; Col. 
1:6; 2:20, with "living in"), also for the inhabitants of 
the world, or human society (Rom. 3:19; 4:13; 1 Cor. 
i:27f; 5:10; 14:10) and for men as estranged from 
God, i. e., the wicked (1 Cor. 1:21; 2 Cor. 7:10). 



THE WORLD-VIEW OF PAUL 3 

connected with it, the curtain falls. Beyond that, 
Paul contents himself with one all-inclusive as- 
surance, namely, that God will "be all in all," 8 
and that he will exercise over the cosmos an 
eternal sway, which shall not be disputed. 

Looking back over the earlier chapters of the 
cosmic history, of which eschatology is only the 
final chapter, we find, with Paul as our guide, 
that there has been in progress, from the be- 
ginning, a cosmic struggle for the mastery of the 
universe. The combatants in this contest are, on 
the one side, God and all that is good; on the 
other side, Satan and all that is evil. This last 
named group includes Satan's host of demonic 
beings, as well as those men, who, by their in- 
dulgence in sin, have allied themselves with 
Satan and his hosts, and have, by so doing, be- 
come his allies and in consequence the enemies 
of God. 9 Satan's opponent was the God of the 

8 1 Cor. 15:28. 

9 In referring to the evil powers, Paul uses a variety of 
terms. He seems to have no fixed conception of the 
relation of these powers to each other and to the cosmos. 
He is not concerned with angelology for its own sake. 
For him demonic sway over the world constituted a 
hiatus in the world process. He shows himself familiar 



4 PAUL S DOCTRINE OF REDEMPTION 

Hebrews, the God of Paul's inherited faith, the 
only real God, the living God, who had created 
the heavens and the earth. Satan 10 was the 
adversary, not alone of men's souls, but of God 
himself and of God's order and rule. 11 His op- 
position to God was not theoretical, passive or 
intermittent, but actual, active and constant. It 
had been of long duration and had been, through- 

with it, and recognizes its reality; but, since this entire 
demonic host is shortly to be overthrown, it can only 
have a passing interest. This interest, however, is in- 
tensely real while it lasts, because these beings are actual 
antagonists, not only of God, but also of every individual; 
and they must be overcome, if the future blessings are to 
be enjoyed. Paul uses the following names: Satan, Belial, 
the Evil One, the Tempter, the Serpent, the Devil, the 
God of this Age, the Ruler of the Power of the Air, the 
Spirit that now works in the sons of disobedience, 
Demons, Spirits, Gods, Lords, Elements, the Rulers of 
this Age, Principalities, Authorities, Powers, Angels, 
Dominions. On Death and Sin see pp. 26-32. 

10 Despite the elasticity observed in Paul's use of terms 
referring to the cosmic foes of God, and despite the 
further fact that the form of the Devil is not prominent 
in Paul (noted by Bousset, Religion des Judentums, 2 
AufL, Berlin, 1906, who also cites J. Weiss, Realencyclo- 
p'ddie, 3 AufL, 409 f. and Everling) while the demons play 
a large part, it nevertheless is clear that Paul, in common 
with post-exilic Judaism, regarded the chief of the de- 
monic hosts, namely, the Devil, Satan, or Belial, as the 
cosmic foe of God par eminence. 

11 1 Cor. 15:24-28. 



THE WORLD-VIEW OF PAUL 5 

out its length, fierce in the extreme. 12 It was 
war to the finish, no quarter to be given. 13 

12 Bousset, Religion des Judentums, 2 Aufl., Berlin, 1906, 
289 ff. 

13 The place of angelology and demonology in the 
thought of Paul has for the most part been overlooked by 
interpreters. The first to give it thorough-going scien- 
tific treatment was Everling, Die paulinische Angelologie 
and Damon ologie, Gottingen, 1888. Prior to Everling, 
others had given the question consideration in works of 
a general character : Gf rorer, Das Jahrhundert des 
Heils, Stuttgart, 1838; Hilgenfeld, Der Galaterbrief '; Leip- 
zig, 1852; Klopper, Der Brief an die Colosser, Berlin, 
1882; Spitta, Der zweite Brief des Petrus und der Brief 
des Judas, Halle, 1885. After Everling, the next to give 
the subject careful examination was Kabisch, Die Eschat- 
ologie des Paulns in ihren Zusammenh'dngen mit dem 
Gesamtbegriif des Paulinismus, Gottingen, 1893; Wernle, 
Die Anfdnge unserer Religion, Tubingen und Leipzig, 
1901, 2 Aufl., 1904; English translation of first edition, 
The Beginnings of Christianity, London and New York, 
1903. Wernle directed attention to the importance of 
demonology in the Pauline Soteriology, but failed to make 
thorough use of the idea. The first one to make the 
attempt really to interpret Paul's Christology from the 
standpoint of the cosmic struggle was Bruckner, Die 
Entstehung der paulinischen Christ ologie, Strassburg, 
1903; followed by Wrede, Paulus, Tubingen, 1904. Next 
came Dibelius, Die Geisterwelt im Glauben des Paulus, 
Gottingen, 1909. Dibelius builds upon the work of Ever- 
ling, but carries it forward chiefly in three directions : 
(1) He makes larger use of rabbinic material than did 
Everling; (2) he undertakes a more thorough-going ex- 
planation of the origin of Paul's ideas; (3) he endeav- 
ors to show the significance, for Paul's faith, of his 
ideas regarding the world of spirits. Everling did not 



6 PAUL'S DOCTRINE OF REDEMPTION 

Thus far Satan had had the better of the con- 
test. First, he had triumphed in that critical 
moment of cosmic history, when the first pair 
were put on trial. Their disobedience was a 
temporary defeat for God. God had a right to 
expect that Adam would be true to him, and stand 
the test successfully. Had he done so, mankind 
would have escaped the ills from which it has 
since suffered. The demonic powers would have 
exercised no influence on the earth, or in the 
affairs of men. 14 As it turned out, however, an 
innumerable host of invisible enemies was turned 

attempt to show the significance of angelology and demon- 
ology for the faith of Paul. Dibelius regards this as a 
fault in Everling's book, and as the reason why his re- 
sults were for a while given slight attention, as Bruckner 
observes, p. 192. Dibelius further observes that the older 
conception did not regard the investigation of Paul's 
views regarding the world of spirits as of value, because 
it had nothing to do with the real faith of Paul. The 
first of these two propositions, he holds, Everling has 
completely disproved. Regarding the second, he main- 
tains that belief in the world of spirits is of special im- 
portance for the Eschatology and the Christology of 
Paul. To overlook these facts is to lose a "portion" 
{Stuck) of Paul's faith (pp. 4 f). Dibelius himself, 
however, does not recognize that demonology had much 
to do with Paul's leading religious ideas (p. 191). 

14 This is the natural inference from Rom. 5:12-21; 6:23; 
1 Cor. 15:21, 22. 



THE WORLD-VIEW OF PAUL 7 

loose to work their will upon men, who, in their 
limited, human strength, were wholly incapable 
of coping with them. This was not surprising. 
These powers, or their chief, at least, had tem- 
porarily triumphed over God. How could man 
then hope to prevail against them? 

Of this vast host of hostile forces, the two 
which were of most concern to men were sin and 
death. It was sin that took advantage of the 
prohibition to Adam and Eve, and, through their 
disobedience of God's command, entered into 
human affairs. But sin did not come alone. 
Along with sin there came, both as companion 
and as finisher of his work, that most dreaded 
of all man's foes — death. 15 

15 In 2 Cor. 11:3, Paul says that in his craftiness the 
serpent deceived Eve. Cf. 1 Tim. 2:14 f. Paul's cus- 
tom, however, would seem to be to attribute the Fall 
to Adam, Rom. 5:12-21; 1 Cor. 15:21, 22. See Gen. 2:16, 
17; 3:1-24. Both traditions obtained in Jewish theology. 
"From a woman was the beginning of sin; And because 
of her we all die." (Ecclesiasticus 25:24.) The rabbis had 
much to say regarding Eve as the cause of Man's fall. 
See citations by Weber, Altsynagogale Theologie, Leip- 
zig, 1880, 210 ff. As a rule, however, the Fall was at- 
tributed to Adam: "And unto him thou gavest command- 
ment to love thy way: which he transgressed, and im- 
mediately thou appointedst death in him and in his genera- 



8 PAUL'S DOCTRINE OF REDEMPTION 

In speaking of sin and death it is necessary to 
observe that Paul did not think of sin and death 
altogether as the modern man thinks of them. 
He looked upon each of these human experi- 
ences from two different standpoints. From one 
standpoint his view does not differ very much 
from our own. With us, he regards sin as a 
transgression of law, an attitude of rebellion, or 
insubordination to the authority of God. 16 He 
spoke also of sinning against one's brother. 17 
Likewise he used the word death as we do. 
It may mean simply physical death, the death 

tions, of whom came nations, tribes, peoples, and kin- 
dreds, out of number. And every people walked after 
their own will, and did wonderful things before thee, and 
despised thy commandments." (IV Ezra 3:7.) "Because 
for their sakes I made the world: and when Adam trans- 
gressed my statutes, then was decreed that now is done. 
Then were the entrances of this world made narrow, full 
of sorrow and travail: they are but few and evil, full of 
perils, and very painful." (IV Ezra 7:11, 12.) "O thou 
Adam, what hast thou done? for though it was thou that 
sinned, thou art not fallen alone, but we all that came of 
thee." (IV Ezra 7:118.) 

16 In this sense Paul usually uses the verb sin: Rom. 
2:12; 3:23; 5:12, 14, 16; 6:15; 1 Cor. 7:28, 36; 15:34 and 
the substantives, transgression Rom. 5:14, misdeed Rom. 
4:25; 5:15-18, 20, and sin, evil deed, Rom. 3:25; 1 Cor. 
6:18. 

17 1 Cor. 8:9-13. 



THE WORLD-VIEW OF PAUL 9 

of the body. 18 It may mean the loss of eternal 
life. 19 In these usages, the terms, sin and death, 
have a natural significance, which we find no dif- 
ficulty in determining. Sin is regarded as a 
psychic phenomenon, having to do with volition 
and action in relation to others. Death is viewed 
as a universal phenomenon in the material world, 
or in a metaphorical sense, referring to a future 
condition, which is for our thought analogous to 
the physical phenomenon with which we are 
familiar. 

But there is another standpoint from which 
Paul viewed sin and death. It is extremely dif- 
ficult, if indeed possible, for the modern man to 
stand with him at this point of vision, and con- 
template them as he did. Yet it is absolutely 
necessary to the understanding of Paul that, to a 
certain extent, one accustom himself to Paul's 
mode of thought in this respect. It must not be 
imagined, however, that Paul originated this 
manner of thinking or that he to any extent 
monopolized it. He was by no means unique at 
this point, but was thoroughly a man of his 

18 Phil, i :2o; 2:27, 30. 

19 2 Cor. 2:16; 7:10. 



IO PAULS DOCTRINE OF REDEMPTION 

times. 20 It goes without saying that he not only- 
used the vocabulary of his day, but also the 
thought- forms of his day. Otherwise, the first 
readers of his epistles would have had as much 
difficulty in understanding him as theologians 
have had from that day to the present. 

For several centuries preceding the age of 
Paul, how much earlier we do not know, and 
for a considerable time thereafter, men were ac- 
customed to refer to a given phenomenon and to 
its cause, by the use of the same word. In ap- 
plying the term to the phenomenon itself, apart 
from any thought of its cause, their mental proc- 
ess was not unlike our own. They used the 
words wisdom, reason, law, sin, death, and other 
words in much the same way that we do, 
that is, as terms corresponding with certain con- 
cepts, whether abstract or concrete. 

On the other hand, they used these same terms 
much as we do proper names. They apparently 
thought of wisdom, 21 reason, 22 and the like as 
entities, as actual living existences, or beings. 

20 Charles, Book of Enoch, 2d Ed. Oxford, 1912, CIV f . 
21 Prov. 8:22-31; Job 28; Clem. Alex., Strom. VI, 7. 
22 Clem. Alex., Exhortation to the Heathen, Ch. I. 



THE WORLD- VIEW OF PAUL II 

Paul speaks of sin 23 and death, 23 and, as shown 
later, of law, 24 as though they were sentient be- 
ings. Sin 25 and Death 25 are said to enter into 
the world. They are said to reign as sovereigns. 
Death passes unto or upon all men. Men die to 
Sin; live in Sin; are the slaves of Sin. These 
and kindred expressions would, in ordinary cases, 
indicate a personification of these ideas. Inter- 
preters as a rule so understand them. 26 It will 

23 Rom., Chaps. 5, 6, 7. 

24 Pp. 69-71. 

25 From this point on capitals are used with these words 
when the personal significance here referred to is present 
in them. 

26 See Thayer, Lexicon; Jiilicher, in J.Weiss, Die Schrif- 
ten des Neuen Testaments, 2 Aufl., Gottingen, 1908, II, 
256, 264, 271. Sanday feels that Paul's language in Rom., 
Chaps. 6, 7, does not carry us beyond personification, yet 
he recognizes that personification does not adequately 
explain Paul's thought, and that a "personal agency" 
must in some way be predicated. His indecision is note- 
worthy: "And although it is doubtless true that in chaps. 
VI, VII, where Paul speaks most directly of the baleful 
activity of Sin, he does not intend to lay special stress 
on this; his language is of the nature of personification 
and does not necessarily imply a person; yet when we 
take it in connection with other language elsewhere [i. e., 
in the Corinthian, Ephesian, Colossian, Thessalonian, and 
Pastoral Epistles], we see that in the last resort he would 
have said that there was a personal agency at work. It is 
at least clear that he is speaking of an influence external 
to man, and acting upon him in a way in which spiritual 
forces act. . . . He too expresses truth through symbols, 



12 PAULS DOCTRINE OF REDEMPTION 

be developed more fully in the course of this 
study that Paul's language carries us quite be- 
yond the rhetorical device of personification. 
The thorough-going investigations of Everling, 27 
Kabisch 28 and Dibelius 29 leave little room for 
doubt that with Paul Sin and Death were, from 
a certain point of view, hypostases, existences, 
beings, or personalities. As such, they are to be 
classed along with the Principalities, Powers, 
Rulers, Angels, Demons, and the rest of that in- 
numerable host of cosmic beings which, as we 
have already seen, constituted a prime factor in 
Paul's world problem. 

We have already observed that Paul's philos- 
ophy was practical, not academic. He was de- 
cidedly more interested in man's fate than he 

and in the days when men can dispense with symbols his 
teaching may be obsolete, but not before." Note on "St. 
Paul's Conception of Sin and the Fall," in International 
Critical Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, New 
York, 1895, pp. 145-147. In justification of Sanday's re- 
luctance to concede anything beyond a personification of 
sin in Rom., Chaps. 6, 7, may be noted the use of human 
law with the verb, to rule (7:1). 

21 Die paulinische Angelologie und Damonologie, Got- 
tingen, 1888. 

28 Die Eschatologie des Paulus, Gottingen, 1893. 

29 Die Geisterwelt im Glauben des Paulus, Gottingen, 
1909. 



THE WORLD- VIEW OF PAUL 1 3 

was in the construction of an Apocalyptist's cos- 
mology. We do not find him running off into 
endless speculation regarding the inhabitants of 
the lower regions and of the super-terrestrial 1 
regions. He was chiefly concerned with those 
two particular cosmic forces, or beings, that had 
most to do with man's present and future misery, 
namely, Sin and Death. In this intensely prac- 
tical character of his philosophy we probably 
have an explanation of the striking fact already 
referred to, that he has relatively little to say re- 
garding the chief of the cosmic foes of God 
and of man, namely, the Devil, or Satan. As 
Paul saw it, the cosmic struggle under which 
the world was groaning was not primarily a 
struggle between the Devil and his hosts, on the 
one side, and men on the other, but a struggle 
between the Devil and his hosts, on one side, and 
God on the other. Satan and God — these were 
the protagonists. Man played a secondary part. 
He was drawn into the cosmic drama by no act 
of his own, but by an accident, or misfortune, in 
the yielding of the first pair to the seductions of 
Satan, God's enemy. By their disobedience to 
their Creator they fell into the power of this 



14 PAUl/s DOCTRINE OF REDEMPTION 

adversary of God, their punishment being that 
they and their progeny should be at the mercy 
of two of Satan's subordinates, namely, Sin and 
Death. It was these two subordinates of the 
chief adversary with which man had most to 
do. It is not surprising, therefore, that Paul has 
comparatively little to say regarding the Devil, 
while Sin and Death bulk large in his writings. 
Nor is it surprising that, at the thought of the 
overthrow of these demonic powers, he should 
exclaim: "O Death, where is thy victory? O 
Death, where is thy sting? The sting of Death 
is Sin; and the power of Sin is the Law: but 
thanks be to God, who giveth us the victory 
through our Lord, Jesus Christ !" 30 As twin 
despots they had ruled supreme over men with 
relentless obstinacy and cruelty. From the hour 
of Adam's Fall, none had escaped their fury. 
Under their dominion, Jew and Gentile alike had 
plunged into the deepest depths of degradation 
and shame. In all the world there was not one 
good, no, not one ! 31 God had been driven from 
the field. Man was left helpless in the hands of 

30 1 Cor. 15:55-57. Cf., Rom. 7:24, 25; 11:25-36. 
31 Rom. 1:18—3:20. 



THE WORLD- VIEW OF PAUL 1 5 

implacable and resistless foes. The cosmos lan- 
guished under the sway of an imperial host of 
superhuman fiends. 

Paul's philosophy could not leave humanity in 
the condition to which Sin and Death had 
brought it. His faith in God required that the 
sway of Satan and his hosts over the earth and 
the affairs of men should some day come to an 
end, and that God should rule supreme. 32 In 
accordance with this belief, the history of the 
cosmos was divided into two periods, eons, or 
ages, namely, the present age, and the coming 
age. 33 This division was more than a temporal 
one. The present age belonged to the evil 
spirits. 34 They ruled over it as sovereigns, dom- 

32 See citations in Dibelius, Die Geisterwelt im Glauben 
des Paulus, Gottingen, 1909, 100 f., and Kabisch, Die 
Eschatologie des Paulus, Gottingen, 1893. 

33 Rom. 12:2; 1 Cor. 1:20; 2:6, 8; 3:18; 2 Cor. 4:4; 
Gal. 1:4; Eph. 1:21; 2:2, 7; 6:12. This division of cos- 
mic history was common in New Testament times, and 
in post-exilic Judaism. See Bousset, Religion des Juden- 
tums, 2 Aufl., Berlin, 1906, 321-324. Volz, Jildische 
Eschatologie, Tubingen und Leipzig, 1903, 296-298. 
Schiirer, Geschichte des judischen Volkes, 4 Aufl., Leip- 
zig, 1907, II. 636 ff. 

34 The thought of the Graeco-Roman world of Paul's 
day was not materially different from that of Jewish 
theology with respect to the dominating influence in life 



1 6 Paul's doctrine of redemption 

mating and controlling it to the extent that all 
phenomena which were adverse to man's interest 
and welfare were caused by them. Among these 
phenomena were reckoned diseases, especially 
such as produced striking abnormality, as lunacy, 
epilepsy, paralysis. Other of these phenomena 
were storms, droughts, lightning, thunder, and 
the various ills of humanity, last and chief of all 
— death. Man lived in a continuous fear of these 
foes of his happiness. Life was one long attempt 
to avoid displeasing them. It was an "evil age." 
To escape from it would be the greatest possible 
blessing and happiness. 

The coming age, on the contrary, belonged un- 
questionably to God. Good must triumph over 
evil. Ultimately, God, who had been, for the 
most part, dispossessed of the cosmos, which he 
had created, would assert his sway over it by 
subduing or destroying the hosts of Satan that 
had for so long usurped its control This op- 
timism Paul expresses frequently, but notably in 
the two following passages : 

of the evil spirits and the desire for salvation from their 
power and control. See Bousset, in J. Weiss, Die Schrif- 
ten des Neuen Testaments, Gottingen, 1908, II, 32 f . 



THE WORLD-VIEW OF PAUL 1 7 

"But now hath Christ been raised from the 
dead, the first fruits of them that are asleep. 
For since by man came Death, by man came also 
the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam 
all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. 
But each in his own order: Christ the first 
fruits ; then they that are Christ's, at his coming. 
Then cometh the end, when he shall deliver up 
the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he 
shall have abolished all rule and all authority and 
power. For he must reign, till he hath put all 
his enemies under his feet. The last enemy that 
shall be abolished is Death. For, He put all 
things in subjection under his feet. But when 
he saith, All things are put in subjection, it is 
evident that he is excepted who did subject all 
things unto him. And when all things have been 
subjected unto him, then shall the Son also him- 
self be subjected to him that did subject all 
things unto him, that God may be all in all." 35 

"For I reckon that the sufferings of this pres- 
ent time are not worthy to be compared with the 
glory which shall be revealed to usward. For 
the earnest expectation of the creation waiteth 
86 1 Cor. 15:20-28. 



1 8 PAUl/s DOCTRINE OF REDEMPTION 

for the revealing of the sons of God. For the 
creation was subjected to vanity, not of its own 
will, but by reason of him who subjected it, in 
hope that the creation itself also shall be deliv- 
ered from the bondage of corruption into the 
liberty of the glory of the children of God. For 
we know that the whole creation groaneth and 
travaileth in pain together until now. And not 
only so, but ourselves also, who have the first- 
fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan 
within ourselves, waiting for our adoption, to 
wit, the redemption of our body. . . . And 
we know that to them that love God all things 
work together for good, even to them that are 
called according to his purpose. For whom he 
foreknew, he also foreordained to be conformed 
to the image of his Son, that he might be the 
first born among many brethren: and whom he 
foreordained, them he also called : and whom he 
called, them he also justified; and whom he justi- 
fied, them he also glorified. What then shall we 
say to these things? If God is for us, who is 
against us ? He that spared not his own Son, but 
delivered him up for us all, how shall he not also 
with him freely give us all things? Who shall 



THE WORLD-VIEW OF PAUL 19 

lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is 
God that justifieth; who is he that condemneth? 
It is Christ Jesus that died, yea, rather, that was 
raised from the dead, who is at the right hand of 
God, who also maketh intercession for us. Who 
shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall 
tribulation, or anguish, or persecution, or famine, 
or nakedness, or peril, or sword? Even as it is 
written, 

For thy sake we are killed all the day long; 
We were accounted as sheep for the slaughter. 

Nay, in all these things we are more than con- 
querors through him that loved us. For I am 
persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, 
nor principalities, nor things present, nor things 
to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor 
any other creature, shall be able to separate us 
from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus 
our Lord." 36 

From the foregoing it is evident that the divi- 
sion of the history of the cosmos into two great 
periods of time, a present and a future age, had 
for its basis the dualistic philosophy which was 

36 Rom. 8:18-39. 



20 PAUL'S DOCTRINE OF REDEMPTION 

common in the time of Paul, among both Jews 
and Greeks. These two periods were character- 
ized by the sway of two great cosmic forces, 
which were totally opposed to each other. When 
either of these forces was in control of the world, 
the other must be, to a large extent, if not en- 
tirely, quiescent or ineffective. The present age 
with all its evil must give way to the coming 
age, which will be filled with every conceivable 
good. 

In the light of all these facts we here lay 
down four propositions as being fundamental to 
a proper interpretation of Paul, and which will 
serve as guides to us in the remainder of this 
discussion : 

i. There must be a clear understanding of 
Paul's philosophy, including both his present 
world-view and his eschatology. 

2. Paul's theology is not distinguishable from 
his philosophy, and therefore the salient features 
of his theology, so-called, are rooted in, and are 
one with his philosophy, or world-view. 

3. Since Paul's theology interpreted the cos- 
mos as being, in his time, under the control of 
the cosmic powers of evil, and just on the eve of 



THE WORLD-VIEW OF PAUL 21 

momentous happenings which would eventuate in 
the transfer of its control to the cosmic forces of 
good, therefore, the Redemption of the World, 
according to Paul, means the overthrow of the 
evil cosmic powers and the enthronement of the 
good cosmic powers, or, in other words, the vic- 
tory of God over Satan and his host of demons. 
4. Since Paul was primarily interested in the 
practical rather than in the speculative side of 
this redemptive program of God, his scheme for 
human redemption is to be understood as a part 
of the cosmic redemption, i. e., as the freeing of 
man from the dominion of the demonic powers, 
in particular, Sin and Death. 



CHAPTER II 

THE NECESSITY AND CHARACTER OF COSMIC 
REDEMPTION 

Looked at through the eyes of Paul, the condi- 
tion of the universe was not a happy one. The 
world, both of animate and of inanimate matter, 
groaned and travailed in pain, awaiting its de- 
liverance from the Powers of Evil. It had been 
created by God capable of being made subject to 
these Powers, but with the purpose that it should 
be released ultimately from them, and given the 
freedom of the glory of the children of God. 
Men, in particular, groaned within themselves, 
confidently and momentarily expecting their final 
installation as sons of God, which carried with 
it the redemption of the body. 37 

It is evident that such phenomena as are here 
referred to were not to be expected as the result 
of a gradual or evolutionary process. The pic- 

S7 Rom. 8:19-23. See also Rom. 1:18 — 3:18; 12:2; 1 Cor. 
2:6; 2 Cor. 4:4; Eph. 2:2. 

22 



CHARACTER OF COSMIC REDEMPTION 23 

ture is of something sudden, cataclysmic, catas- 
trophic. Moreover, the attitude of the cosmos, 
man included, is that of relative passivity. The 
contemplated changes are not predicated on the 
basis of processes at work within the cosmos 
but on the basis of an impending catastrophic 
divine act. It is by waiting, expecting and being 
prepared, that the blessings are to be secured. 
The redemption is something to be wrought out 
by God external to and for the benefit of the 
cosmos. This applies as well to men as to in- 
animate matter. If Paul exhorted the Philip- 
pians to work out their own salvation with fear 
and trembling, he immediately added: 'Tor it 
is God who works in you both to will and to 
effect in you his good intention for you." 38 The 
world is unable to save itself; it must have a 
Redeemer or Savior from without. 

The reason for this is to be found in the fact 
that the foes in whose thraldom it is held are 
superhuman foes. "For our conflict is not 
against blood and flesh, but against the princi- 
palities, against the powers, against the world- 

38 Phil. 2:12, 13. 



24 PAUL S DOCTRINE OF REDEMPTION 

rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual hosts 
of wickedness in the super-terrestrial regions." 39 
These foes are not going to relinquish their con- 
trol over the world voluntarily. It must be taken 
away from them by force. But this requires a 
power stronger than they. There is but one such 
Power and that is God. Man must rely on God, 
the stronger Power, since of himself man can do 
nothing. 

While it is true, as will appear later, that 
Christ is, from one point of view, the Redeemer, 
it is also true that Paul conceives God the Father 
to be ultimately the Redeemer of the cosmos. 
To be sure, the gospel, which contains the plan 
of redemption, is more frequently called the gos- 
pel of Christ, but it is also the "gospel of God." 40 
Redemption is an expression of the love of 
God. 41 Eternal life is the free gift of God in 
Christ Jesus, our Lord. 42 It was God the Father 

39 Eph. 6: 12. If one reads this entire passage, he will 
be struck with two things : the completeness of the Chris- 
tian's armor, or panoply, and the entire absence of sol- 
dierly action. It is not the actual fighting, but the posses- 
sion of the armor, which insures the victory. 

40 Rom. i:i; 15:16; 2 Cor. 11:7; 1 Thes. 2\2, 8, 9. 

41 Rom. 5:7, 8; 8:39. 

42 Rom. 6:23. 



CHARACTER OF COSMIC REDEMPTION 25 

who sent his Son to redeem men from Sin. 43 
God is on the side of men in their fight against 
angels, principalities and powers. 44 It was in 
accordance with the will of God that Christ gave 
himself for our sins, in order that he might de- 
liver us from this present evil world. 45 The 
righteousness of God which is revealed in the 
gospel is a condition of acceptance with God, 46 
which men enjoy by virtue of the fact that it 
was a God-provided righteousness. It had its 
origin in God. It was his grace, or love, that 
provided it as his gift to men. 47 It is the power 
of God that is manifest in the gospel for the 
salvation of men. 48 God did not intend us to be 
the victims of wrath, but the recipients of salva- 
tion through our Lord Jesus Christ. 49 

43 Rom. 8 : 3, 32. Gal. 4 '.4. 

44 Rom. 8:31-39. 

45 Gal. 1 '.4. " 'Deliver' strikes the key-note of the epis- 
tle. The Gospel is a rescue, an emancipation, from a 
state of bondage. See esp. 4:9, 31; 5:1, 13." Lightfoot, 
Commentary on Galatians, London and Cambridge, 1869, 
in loc. 

46 The genitive in the phrase, ducaLorivr) 0eo9, is one of 
source. This is uniform in Paul's usage of this phrase, 
unless Rom. 3:5, 25, 26 be exceptions. But see pp. 98-109. 

47 Rom. 3:24. 

48 Rom. 1:16. 
49 1 Thes. 5:9. 



26 paul's doctrine of redemption 

We must next inquire more closely into the 
character of the redemption, which God has ef- 
fected for the world. In this inquiry, the first 
step will be to determine how Paul regarded the 
two cosmic foes, with which man had most of 
all to contend — Sin and Death. The next step 
will be to survey Paul's general conception of the 
benefits which accrue to those who avail them- 
selves of the salvation which God has provided. 

Fundamentally there is no sharp distinction to 
be drawn between Sin and Death, on the one 
side, and their chief, Satan, on the other. We 
approach Paul's thought more nearly when we 
regard Sin and Death as hypostases of Satan, 
the same in being and purpose with him. Jewish 
demonology was at no time reduced to a well- 
defined and fixed system, as to the particular 
functions which the various demonic beings were 
charged with. Still there was a general classifi- 
cation of them, from the standpoint of their 
rank and of the service they performed. But 
this differentiation of them, the one from the 
other, must not be thought of as a differentiation 
of kind, or ultimately of person. They were all 
generically one. In their unity they constituted 



CHARACTER OF COSMIC REDEMPTION 27 

that primal evil power to which primitive peoples 
attribute all misfortune, sorrow and pain. In 
their differentiation they stood for the particular 
manifestation of that primal evil power that re- 
sulted in a given misfortune, or calamity. Death 
was closely united in thought with Satan, or the 
Devil. The author of the Epistle to the He- 
brews interprets Christ's death as the means of 
destroying "him that hath the power of Death, 
that is, the Devil." 50 Paul attributes to Satan 
the power to destroy the body, that is, the power 
of Death. 51 The identification of Sin with the 
Devil seems to have been common in Paul's day. 
The haggadic literature substitutes the Devil for 
the serpent in the story of the Fall, or represents 
the Devil as assuming the form of a serpent. 52 

In Romans, chapters 5, 6, 7, we have Paul's 
most extended discussion of Sin. Rom. 5 :i2-2i 
is devoted to the theological side of the question. 

50 Heb. 2:14. 

51 1 Cor. 5 :5. Bousset regards Death, Hades, the angel 
of Hades, mentioned in Isa. 25:7 f., IV Ez. 8:53; Bar. 
21:23; Tt. Levi 18; 1 Cor. 15:25 f., 55, as identical with 
the Devil. See also Dibelius, p. 115, and Kabisch, pp. 
163 ff. 

62 See Bousset, Die Religion des Judentums, 2 Aufl., Ber- 
lin, 1906, 468 f. 



28 PAUL'S DOCTRINE OF REDEMPTION 

Here the presence of Sin in the world is ac- 
counted for, as we have seen, by the Fall of 
Adam. In chapters 6, 7 the ethical phase of the 
question is considered. The actual workings of 
Sin in human experience are depicted. Sin 
reigns as a supreme sovereign in the mortal 
bodies of unbelievers, compelling the desires to 
obey it, and, in so doing, to commit transgres- 
sions against God. 53 Sin and God are lords bid- 
ding as it were for men's voluntary enslave- 
ment. 54 Men may choose as pleases them, now 
that righteousness 55 has been provided in 
Christ. 56 If they choose to enslave themselves 

53 Rom. 6:12-14. 

54 On the practice of voluntary enslavement to a deity 
after liberation from literal slavery to men, see Deiss- 
mann, Licht vom Osten, Tubingen, 1908, 231-238. Eng. 
trans., Light from the Ancient East, New York and Lon- 
don, 1910, pp. 322-334. 

55 Paul's use of righteousness in Rom. 6:12-23 is inter- 
esting. It, rather than God, is put in opposition to Sin, 
in verses 13, 16, 18, 19, 20. This fact, taken alone, would 
militate against the view that Sin is here conceived of 
as personal. But verse 18 shows that righteousness is 
used rhetorically for God. The expression, "being freed 
from Sin, you became enslaved to righteousness" (v. 18), 
becomes in verse 22, "being freed from Sin, but enslaved 
to God." This use of righteousness is overlooked by 
Kabisch, Die Eschatologie des Paulus, Gottingen, 1893, 
166. 

5S Despite such utterances as those found in Rom. 1:18- 



CHARACTER OF COSMIC REDEMPTION 2g 

to Sin, the result will be death. If they choose 
to enslave themselves to God, the result will be 
eternal life. Sin as a lord pays his servants. 57 
But what a remuneration — Death! Those who 
choose to serve God rather than Sin will receive 
no pay, for they can earn nothing in his service, 
but they will receive from him the free gift of 
eternal life. 58 

In its effect upon human experience Sin is 
closely connected with the human body. It 
reigns in the body. 59 The passions which lead 
to transgressions through the law work in our 
members, producing fruit unto death. 60 With 
the mind one serves the law of God; with the 
flesh the law of Sin. 61 The flesh constituted a 
weakness in men, rendering the law incapable of 
saving them from Sin. 62 Those whose conduct 

23, 28; 2:14, Paul nowhere makes perfectly plain how 
far salvation was possible in the period preceding the 
advent of Christ. 

57 Military lord, probably, in view of the military 
weapons, mentioned in Rom. 6:13. 

58 Rom. 6:23. 

59 Rom. 6:12. 

60 Rom. 7:5. 

61 Rom. 7:25. Sin, as a person, is credited with having 
a law, just as God is. 

62 Rom. 8:3. This weakness or impotency of the flesh 



30 PAUL S DOCTRINE OF REDEMPTION 

is determined by the flesh cannot measure up to 
the righteousness which the law requires. 63 To 
belong to Christ means the crucifixion of the 
flesh, with its passions and desires, as the media 
through which Sin finds expression. 64 

Sin and Death are closely allied in their oppo- 
sition to men. They entered into human experi- 
ence at the Fall simultaneously, as cause and 
effect. "Through one man Sin entered into the 
world, and, through Sin, Death, and so upon all 
men Death passed, because all sinned." 65 Death 
is the logical and inevitable result of Sin. 66 In 
Death Sin has its triumphant reign. 67 This re- 
lation of cause and effect between the cosmic 
Power Sin, and the natural phenomenon death, 
has its explanation in the fact that since actual 
transgressions are the indisputable evidence of 

with regard to sin is probably to be understood as a 
cosmic inferiority to the cosmic power, Sin, rather than 
as a purely psychic or physiological tendency of the body 
to commit sin. This verse contrasts the cosmic power 
of Sin and the cosmic power of Christ, who conquers 
Sin. 

63 Rom. 8:4-8. 

M Gal. 5:24. 

65 Rom. 5:12. 

66 Rom. 1:32; 6:16, 21, 23; 7:5, 13. 

67 Rom. 5:21. 



CHARACTER OF COSMIC REDEMPTION 3 1 

allegiance to Sin, 68 God cannot do otherwise 
than inflict death upon those who are allied with 
his enemy, Sin. God must ultimately triumph 
over his cosmic enemies, else there is no hope 
for the world. All who are allied with these 
enemies must suffer their fate. Man is not nat- 
urally God's enemy, but his creature. It was 
not intended originally that he should become ar- 
rayed against God, but even after that estrange- 
ment took place, in the Fall of Adam, God's 
real purpose for, and disposition toward, man 
underwent no material change. At no time has 
he ever desired the death of men. God loves 
men with a love far surpassing human love. It 
has been his concern to devise a plan by which 
he could break the power of Sin over men, and 
set them free to make another choice between 
himself and his cosmic enemy. Since the Fall, 
men have been handicapped by the fact that Sin 
secured an advantage over them, for which they 
are not entirely responsible. On the one hand, 
their allegiance to Sin rendered it impossible for 
God to do otherwise than reckon them as allies 
of his adversary. On the other hand, this alle- 
68 Rom. 6:16. 



32 PAULS DOCTRINE OF REDEMPTION 

giance, being not originally voluntary on their 
part, and, indeed, at no time entirely so, it was 
impossible for men, unaided by a power stronger 
than Sin, to break the bonds that bound them to 
their over-lord, Sin, and to present themselves as 
vassals, or slaves, to God. It was this extremity 
of men that made necessary God's plan of re- 
demption for them. 

Turning now to a consideration of Paul's gen- 
eral view of the nature of the world's redemp- 
tion, we recall that he regarded it as a two- fold 
process and that his practical philosophy led 
him to deal chiefly with the saving of men from 
Sin and Death, and to allude relatively seldom 
to the redemption of the cosmos from the evil 
powers. While it is true that the salvation of 
men is inseparably connected with the redemption 
of the cosmos, still the two are, in a way, dis- 
tinct problems. That Paul in thought differen- 
tiated between them becomes evident on exam- 
ining his vocabulary and his general attitude to- 
ward them. When speaking of the redemption 
of the world, he refers in general terms to the 
putting down of all rule, authority, power, ene- 



CHARACTER OF COSMIC REDEMPTION 33 

mies, and the like. 69 Or he speaks of the created 
universe as something which is ultimately at the 
complete disposal of God. If it now languishes 
under the sway of demonic powers, this condi- 
tion was a part of God's purpose for it. Even- 
tually it will realize the purpose which he has had 
for it from the beginning, namely, the freedom 
of the glory of the children of God. 70 That the 
world will be rescued from the sway of the Evil 
Powers at some point in the near future Paul 
entertains no doubt. Being inert matter, it has 
no part to play in its own redemption, of course. 
With the overthrow of the Evil Powers it passes 
ipso facto under God's beneficent sway. 

Paul's representation of the salvation of men 
is very different from these descriptions of the 
redemption of the world of matter. In speaking 
of man's salvation, he uses a great variety of ex- 
pressions and figures of speech, such as reconcil- 
iation, propitiation, righteousness, Passover, and 
the Mosaic law. These terms are all, however, 
Jewish in their association, and occur chiefly in 
those discussions regarding salvation in which 

69 1 Cor. 15 124-26. 
70 Rom. 8:20,21. 



34 PAUl/s DOCTRINE OF REDEMPTION 

Paul encounters opposing views from Judaizing 
sympathizers. In order to obtain a genuinely 
Pauline view of salvation, we should select an 
utterance in which Paul expresses himself un- 
trammeled by any opposing theories, or apolo- 
getic purpose. Fortunately we have several such 
utterances, notably in his first letter to the Thes- 
salonians. From this letter the controversial ele- 
ment is absent. The congregation was a new 
one. Paul had been driven from their midst by 
persecution before he had completed his stay. 
They were beginners in the Christian life. It is 
not likely that in addressing them he would use 
language that he had not used when among them. 
From such a letter we should expect to find the 
gist of Paul's gospel, as he preached it in Gentile 
communities, and as he wrote about it when un- 
influenced by Jewish traditions and vocabulary. 
In this letter he recounts briefly the history of 
the Thessalonian church, dwelling with evident 
pleasure upon the success of his mission among 
them and their clear and firm grasp upon the 
fundamentals of his doctrine of salvation. He 
says, "We thank God at all times on your ac- 
count . . . remembering your work of faith, 



CHARACTER OF COSMIC REDEMPTION 35 

your labor of love, and your steadfastness of 
hope in our Lord Jesus Christ before our God 
and Father, knowing, brethren beloved of God, 
the outstanding features of your conversion, that 
our gospel was for you, not simply a matter of 
discourse, but was characterized by power, by 
the Holy Spirit and by much assurance. . . . 
For by you the word of the Lord was promul- 
gated widely, not only in Macedonia and Achaia, 
but in every place your faith in God has gone 
forth, so that we have no need to say anything. 
For they themselves announce what sort of ac- 
cess we had to you, and how you turned to God 
from idols to serve a God living and true, and 
to await the coming of his Son from the heavens, 
whom he raised from the dead, namely, Jesus, 
who rescues us from coming wrath." 71 

It is in the closing sentence of this passage 
that we have Paul's epitome of his gospel mes- 
sage; in other words, the essentials of the plan 
of salvation. They are : the worship of the one 
living and true God, the awaiting of his Son 
from the heavens, belief in the fact that God 
raised his Son from the dead, and deliverance 

71 1 Thes. i :2-io. 



36 PAUL'S DOCTRINE OF REDEMPTION 

from the coming wrath. These four items may 
be reduced to one — escape from the coming 
wrath. The remaining three are subsidiary to 
this one practical result. The worship of the 
true and living God is necessary to this deliv- 
erance. Neither a dead God nor a false one, such 
as the Thessalonians had worshiped, could effect 
deliverance from the impending wrath. The 
coming of God's Son from the heavens was the 
time set by God when his wrath would be dis- 
played. The fact that this living and true God 
had brought his Son back from the region of 
the dead was the ground of faith, or confidence 
in God that he could and would deliver men 
from the wrath which was reserved for his foes, 
who had held the world in subjection and in- 
flicted unspeakable woes upon men. According 
to this passage, at least, Paul conceived of sal- 
vation as deliverance from the wrath which 
would be manifested at that eschatological mo- 
ment when the end would come to "this age," 
with all its misery and woe, as well as to the 
Powers of Darkness and Evil which produced 
this misery and woe, and when the "coming age" 
of God would be ushered in. This thought is 



CHARACTER OF COSMIC REDEMPTION 2>7 

repeated in the following summary: "For God 
did not appoint us unto wrath, but unto the ob- 
taining of salvation through our Lord Jesus 
Christ, who died for us, that, whether we wake 
or sleep (i. e., live until the Parousia takes place 
or die in advance of it) we may live (thereafter 
and forever) with him." 72 Paul's closing wish, 
or prayer, for the Thessalonians contains the 
same thought: "May the very God of peace 
sanctify you wholly, and may your whole spirit 
and soul and body be preserved blameless until 
the Parousia of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faith- 
ful is he who calls you, who also will do it." 73 

72 1 Thes. 5 : 9, 10. 

73 1 Thes. 5:23, 24. See also 2:19, 20; 4:13-18; 5:1, 2; 2 
Thes. 1:5-10; 2:1-12. It may be objected that it is inter- 
pretatively inadmissible to take a more or less isolated 
representation from this early, simple, and practical letter 
to the Thessalonians and give to it normative, or standard, 
value, when it is lacking in those outstanding characteris- 
tics of the Pauline soteriology, as we gather them from 
the so-called soteriological letters, namely, Gal., 1 and 2 
Cor., Rom. We have already intimated that the reason 
for this difference lies not in Paul, but in the conditions 
under which he wrote his several letters. On this point 
more later. In the meantime, let it be observed that, 
if this is the form in which Paul presented the gospel 
to the Thessalonians on his Second Missionary Jour- 
ney, he must have presented it in a similar form to the 
Philippians, Athenians, and Corinthians on this same 



38 paul/s doctrine of redemption 

The natural interpretation of Paul's utterances 
on Salvation, as recorded in First Thessalonians, 
makes evident that man's salvation, when re- 
duced to its lowest terms, means escape from the 
coming wrath. The same thought is expressed 
to the Romans in the following passage: "But 
God commends his own love to us, in that while 
we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Much 
more then being reckoned as acceptable (to 
God) in his blood, we shall be saved from the 
wrath through him." 74 

It must be borne in mind that this wrath, while 
now revealed from heaven against all ungodli- 
ness and unrighteousness of men who hold down 

journey. Moreover, it is difficult to think of his writing as 
he does to the Thessalonians while he was in Corinth and 
then of his preaching to the Corinthians a "different 
gospel." In his letters to the Thessalonians and Corin- 
thians a striking parallel exists. In both letters, Paul 
testifies to the fact that his preaching was "in power," 
"in the Holy Spirit," or "in demonstration of the Spirit" 
(1 Thes. 1:5; 1 Cor. 2:4, 5). But this suggestion will be 
strengthened as we proceed to a more minute examina- 
tion of the distinctive features of salvation, as Paul re- 
viewed them for his young converts at Thessalonica. 
A comparison of the teaching of the other letters on these 
points will show that the difference between them and the 
Thessalonian letters is not as great as is sometimes main- 
tained. 
74 Rom. 5 : 8, 9. 



CHARACTER OF COSMIC REDEMPTION 39 

the truth in unrighteousness, 75 is really eschato- 
logical. 76 Man's present misfortunes are not an 
expression of God's wrath, or displeasure. Man 
will suffer punishment and loss in consequence 
of his unrighteousness, but this punishment and 
loss are not visitations of God's punitive attitude 
toward the sinner. They are the natural result 
of the workings of the Evil Powers, particularly 
Sin and Death. God's wrath is not a vindictive 
wrath engendered by the fact that men have 
actually committed specific transgressions against 
his law. It is cosmic, representing his opposi- 
tion to the Evil Powers, and will be displayed, 
and become operative in the nearly approaching 
cosmic catastrophe. 77 The cosmic and eschato- 
logical character of God's wrath are set forth in 
the following: "But dost thou reckon this, O 
man, thou that sittest in judgment on those who 
do such things, and yet doest them thyself, that 
thou shalt escape the judgment of God? . . . 

75 Rom. 1:18. 

7fl i Thes. 1:10; 5:9; Rom. 2:5, 8; 5:9; 9:22-24; 12:19. 

" Paul actually recommends the turning of the ethical 
offender at Corinth over to Satan for the destruction of 
the body that the spirit may be saved in the day of the 
Lord. (1 Cor. 5:5.) 



40 PAULS DOCTRINE OF REDEMPTION 

But according to thy hard and impenitent heart 
treasurest up for thyself wrath in the day of 
wrath (the day of the Lord) and revelation of 
the righteous judgment of God, who will render 
to each one according to his deeds, eternal life 78 
to those who by patience in well doing are striv- 
ing for glory 78 and honor 78 and immortality ; 78 
but to those who through a factious spirit and 
disobedience to truth are obedient to unrighteous- 
ness, he will render wrath, and indignation, 
tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man 
who doeth evil, to the Jew first and also to the 
Greek." 79 

If man's salvation is fundamentally a rescue 
from the wrath of God and if that wrath is both 
eschatological and cosmic, it follows that man's 
salvation must be also eschatological and cosmic. 
While for men salvation is an individual bless- 
ing, dependent upon their own choice of God 
rather than of Sin as their master, their sal- 
vation is, at the same time, inseparably connected 
with the redemption of the world from the power 

78 All these are eschatological terms, and are put in op- 
position to the terms which follow, they being likewise 
eschatological. 

79 Rom. 2:3-9. 



CHARACTER OF COSMIC REDEMPTION 41 

of Satan and his hosts. It is in this sense that 
man's salvation may be said to be cosmic. This 
aspect of salvation is expressed in the following 
words addressed to the Corinthians : "Let no 
one glory in men. For all things are yours, 
whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas, or the cos- 
mos or life or Death, or things present or things 
to come, all things are yours and ye are Christ's 
and Christ's is God's." 80 

In his letter to the Romans, Chap. 8, Paul 
most fully sets forth the meaning of salvation. 
We give herewith a portion of this chapter, para- 
phrased in harmony with the cosmic interpreta- 
tion of salvation: "The impending condemna- 
tion is removed from those who have committed 
themselves to the cosmic Christ. For the law 
of the Spirit, which eventuates in eternal life in 
Christ Jesus, freed thee from the law of Sin, 
and of Death. For what law (either the com- 
mand of God or the Mosaic law) could not do, 
because flesh, the mark of the human, was 
weaker than the cosmic power, Sin, against which 
the law arrayed man, God, by sending his 
own Son, in the likeness of the flesh of which 

80 1 Cor. 3:21-23. 



42 PAULS DOCTRINE OF REDEMPTION 

Sin was master, and because of this cosmic 
power, Sin, overthrew the power of Sin over 
flesh (i. e., over men) in order that we might 
have the power to do the things required by the 
law (i. e., live the ethical life), which power we 
believers do have, for we now live a life that is 
not dependent on weak flesh, but on the cosmic 
power of God, which he dispenses to us through 
the Spirit." 81 

While in the foregoing passage Paul begins 
by referring to the eschatological aspects of sal- 
vation, he comes later to speak of the effects of 
salvation in this life. One of these effects, name- 
ly, the supremacy over Sin in the ethical life, we 
discuss later. 82 But before leaving Romans, 
Chap. 8, we must notice some very important ef- 
fects of salvation, which are partly experienced 
in this life and partly in the life to come. 

The first of these is that Paul attributes the 
immortality of believers to the saving work of 
Christ. He says : "If Christ is in you . . . 
the spirit is life [immortal] because of right- 
eousness." 8S The effect of Sin and Death upon 

81 Rom. 8:1-4. 82 See Chapter IV. 

83 Rom. 8:10. 



CHARACTER OF COSMIC REDEMPTION 43 

the spirits or souls of men is counteracted. 
Whereas men's spirits would have perished and 
thus shared the fate of the cosmic powers, Sin 
and Death, they are by virtue of the Spirit of God 
endowed with the principle of eternal life. This 
effect takes place here and now, in this life. As 
far as man's spirit is concerned, the redemptive 
work of Christ restores even here what was lost 
in the service of Sin and Death. 84 With the 
bodies of men, however, the case is different. 
The body dies, i. e., is subject to physical death. 
As Paul expresses it, "The body is dead because 
of Sin." 85 At the same time this is only a tem- 
poral disability. For Paul the salvation of 
Christ must be unlimited in its extent by the 
Cosmic Powers. Even our bodies must be re- 
deemed from the power of Death. 86 And so 
they are to be, by the same power of God which 

84 Paul seems to entertain the view that the actual par- 
ticipation of the human spirit in the power of God ren- 
dered the difference between the present and the future 
existence of the believer one of degree, not of kind. 
What made the earthly life undesirable was the excessive 
burden of the body. The redemption of the body was 
what called forth sighs and longings (Rom. 8:23). 

85 Rom. 8:10. 

86 All that was lost in Adam must be restored through 
Christ. 



44 PAUL S DOCTRINE OF REDEMPTION 

will overthrow all the hostile forces of the uni- 
verse. The only condition is that we have with- 
in us this cosmic dynamic of God. This power 
will give life again to our mortal bodies which 
have fallen victims to the power of Death, and, 
in consequence, have lain in the grave. Our cer- 
tainty of this is found in the resurrection of 
Jesus. "If the Spirit of him that raised up 
Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who 
raised Christ Jesus from the dead will make alive 
even your mortal bodies through his Spirit that 
dwells in you." 87 

There is one more important feature pertain- 
ing to salvation, namely, the adoption as sons of 
God. If we have the Spirit of God, we have 
God himself, for the Spirit is God. To be led 
by this Spirit, that is, to be under the sway of 
God is to be at one with God in the cosmic 
process, particularly in the redemption of the 
world and in one's own redemption. God reck- 
ons such as his sons and gives them the Spirit, 
which reception of the Spirit carries with it son- 
ship, and, in consequence, "we cry Abba 

87 Rom. 8:11. See also Rom. 5:17-21; 1 Cor. 15:20-23; 
Phil. 3 : 20, 21. 



CHARACTER OF COSMIC REDEMPTION 45 

Father/' 88 From sonship Paul advances to the 
related idea of inheritance. The fact that we 
are sons renders us heirs of God the Father, 
joint-heirs with his Son, Jesus Christ. This 
means that we shall share in all his future glory, 
just as we are now sharing in the sufferings 
which he endured while on earth. 89 

With this thought, Paul has again got back 
to the eschatological aspect of salvation with 
which he began Romans, Chap. 8. In the sec- 
tion embraced in verses 20-25, he focuses his 
attention upon the work of redemption, as it 
is to affect the created universe of matter, at 
the same time never losing sight of the im- 
portance which this rehabilitation of the cosmos 
has for those who are united with Christ. In 
verses 26-27, he shows how the believers are 
kept in perfect accord with God's purposes and 
with the entire cosmic process, through the ac- 
tivity of the Spirit in their behalf, especially in 
the matter of prayer. From this vantage point 
he contemplates the ultimate goal of the indi- 
vidual's salvation. This he finds to be conform- 

88 Rom. 8:14-16. Cf. Gal. 4:5, 6. 

89 Rom. 8:17-19. 



46 PAUl/s DOCTRINE OF REDEMPTION 

ity to the image of God's Son. This approxima- 
tion to the likeness of Christ is for Paul's mind 
extremely close, for when we attain to it Christ 
becomes the first-born 90 among many brethren. 
This means complete identification of the saved 
man with God, and all brought about in accord- 
ance with God's eternal plan for the redemption 
of the world. And we know that for those who 
love God all things (all the cosmic forces and 
processes) work together advantageously, name- 
ly, for those who are called according to his 
cosmic purpose. Because whom he foreknew 
he also set apart in advance to be conformed 
to the image of his Son that the Son might be 
the first-born among many who through salva- 
tion become assimilated to his likeness and are 
therefore his brothers in a cosmic sense. 91 

As far as man's salvation is concerned, Paul's 
circuit of thought is complete. 92 He finds man 

90 Rom. 8:29; "The first born only." (Julicher.) 

91 Rom. 8 : 28, 29. See 1 Cor. 15 149 ; Phil. 3 : 20, 21. The 
redeemed in glory not only take on the nature of Christ, 
but also participate in the exercise of one of his chief 
functions; namely, the function of judge at the Great 
Day. 1 Cor. 6:2, 3. 

92 Except for the elaboration of the grounds of as- 
surance on which the believer's hope for this salvation 



CHARACTER OF COSMIC REDEMPTION 4? 

in the grasp and control of the powers of the 
underworld, chiefly two of them, namely, Sin 
and Death. Being human, i. e., flesh, man is 
inferior in strength and intelligence to these 
superhuman powers, while, at the same time, his 
body of flesh constitutes the vehicle, par excel- 
lence, through which Sin operates for his de- 
struction. For this body has desires and propen- 
sities which Sin exploits, and, in so doing, keeps 
man continually in his service as a slave, inas- 
much as these desires and propensities of the 
body, when thus exploited by Sin, result in a 
certain group of deeds or actions which are con- 
trary to the nature and purpose of God. Man 
is helplessly and hopelessly held in this servitude 
to Satan and his allies, since by his own 
strength he is incapable of extricating himself 
from them. To continue in this grasp of the 
Evil Powers is to suffer eternal destruction. God 
in his love for man provides a way of escape in 
a cosmic salvation, which he makes effective 
through the service and obedience of his Son. 

rests. Rom. 8:31-39. Cf. 5:12-21; 6:10-12; 7:24, 25; 
8:9-11. The cosmic character of man's salvation is here 
strongly emphasized. 



48 paul/s doctrine of redemption 

This salvation not only provides for man's rescue 
from the thraldom of these cosmic foes, but also 
provides for a thorough-going rehabilitation and 
transformation of man in every particular, in 
spirit, soul and body (flesh). He becomes iden- 
tified with God in his work for the redemption 
of the cosmos. This means that he becomes a 
positive, active force for good and a violent and 
constitutional foe of every Evil Power and of 
every manifestation of such Evil Power, particu- 
larly in the realm of human conduct. In addi- 
tion to becoming thus identified with God in 
this life, he becomes one with him in nature and 
function in the coming age. 



CHAPTER III 

COSMIC REDEMPTION THROUGH THE DEATH AND 
RESURRECTION OF THE REDEEMER 

In the preceding chapter we have sought to 
establish the following facts with regard to 
Paul's teaching on the redemption of the world : 

i. Paul had a dualistic philosophy, according 
to which two opposing cosmic forces, God and 
Satan, were arrayed against each other in a 
struggle for the control of the universe. 

2. The history of the cosmos was divided 
into two periods, or ages, "the present age" and 
the "coming age." During "the present age," 
Satan and his hosts ruled the world. But "the 
present age" is reaching its end, and "the coming 
age" is just about to be ushered in. With "the 
coming age" the rule of Satan ceases, and the 
rule of God will be supreme. 

3. Man became involved in the cosmic strug- 
gle between God and Satan, through his pro- 
genitor, Adam, who, because of his disobedience 

49 



50 paul's doctrine of redemption 

to God, passed under the control of Sin and 
Death, carrying along with him his entire pro- 
geny, who ever since have suffered countless mis- 
fortunes and afflictions in this life and stand 
doomed to eternal destruction. 

4. God in his love has provided for man a 
way of escape from this hopeless condition, and 
a complete transformation, in which he attains 
to God's own likeness and to a participation in 
his functions as ruler and judge of the universe. 
This rescue and transformation Paul designates 
in several ways, but chiefly by the words sal- 
vation ((TQ)Trjpia) and redemption (dTroAvrpoxris). 

We have now to inquire how this salvation 
was made possible. By what means was it ef- 
fected ? Theology has answered this question by 
saying that the means employed was the death 
of Christ on the cross, and it has made it to be 
its chief task to elaborate this answer and to dis- 
cover the philosophy underlying it. In the pur- 
suance of this task it has put forward many 
hypotheses, out of which have arisen numerous 
well-known and widely current theories of the 
atonement. Upon a rehearsal or discussion of 
these various theories, with their many shades of 



COSMIC REDEMPTION 5 1 

difference, we shall not enter, but shall limit our- 
selves to a division of them into two groups and 
a general characterization of the main features 
of each group. 

Broadly speaking, the theories of the atone- 
ment may be divided into two groups, according 
to the answer which is given to the question: 
Who is affected by the death of Jesus, God or 
man? Those theories which claim that the ef- 
fect of Jesus' death is primarily upon God con- 
stitute a group which we may designate the satis- 
faction group. Those theories which hold that 
the effect is primarily upon man constitute a 
group which we may designate the ethical group. 
In both the satisfaction and the ethical theories 
it is assumed that the death of Christ is a sacri- 
fice. The difference between them arises when 
the effort is made to determine for whose benefit 
the sacrifice is made. Without intending to sit 
in judgment on the worth of these theories, we 
have cited them for the purpose of bringing to 
mind the fact that, while they are far apart in 
their answer to the fundamental question, 
whether primarily God or man is affected by the 
death of Jesus, they are at one as to the fact on 



52 PAUL S DOCTRINE OF REDEMPTION 

which they predicate salvation, namely, the death 
of Jesus a sacrifice. This holds, whether the 
effect be in some way forensic, or juridical, as 
in the satisfaction theories, or psychic, as in the 
ethical theories. 

The place which theology has assigned to the 
death of Jesus in the redemptive program having 
been in this general way determined, it is in order 
next to ascertain what place it has assigned to 
the resurrection of Jesus. Usually it has been 
given a secondary place. Most interpreters of 
Paul have regarded the resurrection of Jesus as 
an act in which his death was given divine attes- 
tation and approval. The resurrection was 
needed, so it is said, as an aid to faith, in order 
to equip the early disciples with the necessary 
confidence for their mission. To herald salva- 
tion as a gift to all men by a Galilean Peasant, 
who died the shameful death of a malefactor, 
was a difficult task at best. It was imperative 
that the missioners be fortified for this under- 
taking by indisputable proof that the Jesus who 
died on the cross was really the Son of God. 
In bringing Christ back from the dead, God the 
Father set the seal of his approval to the shame- 



COSMIC REDEMPTION 53 

ful death of his Son, and thereby proclaimed to 
the world that the sacrifice which Christ made 
on the cross, as an atonement for sin in order to 
reconcile God and man, had been accepted by 
him and that in the death of Christ the world's 
redemption had been effected. In its simplest 
outlines this is the significance which is usually 
assigned to the resurrection of Jesus. 93 

In favor of this interpretation is to be noted 
the fact that it finds support in a comparison of 
Paul's utterances regarding the death of Jesus 
with those regarding his resurrection, both from 
the standpoint of their frequency and of their 
relative enthusiastic vehemence. It gains further 
support from the fact that the death occupies 
the center of interest in at least three of Paul's 
principal letters, namely, Galatians, First Corin- 
thians and Romans. While these facts cannot 
be contradicted, and while they explain in great 

93 B. Weiss, Biblical Theology of the New Testament, 
Eng. trans. Edinburgh, 1888, §81 (c) (d). Ger. 1868, 7 
Aufl., 1903. Holtzmann, Lehrbuch der neutestamentlichen 
Theologie, Freiburg und Leipzig, 2 Aufl., 191 1, II 121 f. 
See additional citations by him. Weinel, Biblische The- 
ologie des Neuen Testaments, 2 Aufl., Tubingen, 1913, 253. 
Jiilicher, in J. Weiss, Die Schriften des Neuen Testaments, 
Gottingen, 2 Aufl., 1908, II 241. 



54 PAUL S DOCTRINE OF REDEMPTION 

measure the relative preponderance in Christian 
theology, from Paul's day to our own, of the 
death of Jesus over his resurrection, they never- 
theless do not compel the conclusion that this 
disparity was present to the mind of the Apostle. 
A careful examination of Paul's teaching on the 
resurrection of Jesus goes to show that it was 
a prime factor in the problem of redemption. 
We misinterpret Paul when we represent him 
as teaching that salvation was effected by the 
death of Jesus apart from his resurrection. The 
death and resurrection were not separable, except 
for thought. Paul viewed them as two aspects 
of one and the same transaction. Together and 
only together they constitute the redemptive 
work of Jesus. The proof of this is abundant, 
as may be seen on comparing the passages cited 
below. 94 

The importance of the resurrection is also 
shown by the fact that it is referred to apart 

94 1 Thes. 4:14; 2 Cor. 5:14, 15; Rom. 4:23-25; 5:10; 
6:8-10; 7:3, 4; 8:34; 14:9; Col. 1:17-20; Phil. 3:10, 11. 
Feine emphasizes the fact that the death and resurrection 
of Jesus should be taken together. However, his inter- 
pretation of the resurrection contains nothing distinctive. 
Theologie des Neuen Testaments, Leipzig, 2 Aufl., 191 1, 
298 ff. 



COSMIC REDEMPTION 55 

from the death of Jesus, not as an attestation of 
the fact that God has accepted the sacrifice of 
Jesus' death, as theology has made out, but as 
an act inseparably connected with those phenom- 
ena whereby salvation is made possible. 95 Fur- 
thermore, there are certain passages in which the 
resurrection itself appears to be the determining 
fact in the redemptive plan. If Christ has not 
been raised from the dead, then the preaching of 
the gospel is vain, and believers are yet in their 
sins. 96 If the death of Jesus alone were the 
basis of salvation, this could not be true. If, 
when we were enemies we were reconciled to 
God through the death of his Son, much more 
being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life, 
not his earthly life, but his life-power manifest 
in the resurrection. 97 In one instance Paul goes 
so far as to make the resurrection alone the ob- 
ject of faith: "If thou wilt confess with thy 
mouth Jesus as Lord, and wilt believe in thy 
heart that God raised him from the dead, thou 
shalt be saved. 98 

95 1 Thes. 1:10; Gal. 1:1; I Cor. 6:14; 2 Cor. 4:14; Rom. 
1:4; 8:11; Eph. 1 :20. 
96 1 Cor. 15 : 14, 17. See Rom. 4 : 24 ; 6 : 8-10 ; 8 : 34. 
91 Rom. 5:10. 88 Rom. 10:9. 



56 PAUI/S DOCTRINE OF REDEMPTION 

The importance which Paul attaches to the 
resurrection as an inseparable part of the re- 
deeming work of Jesus goes to support the dy- 
namic and cosmic view of that work. For, if 
the resurrection be more than an attestation of 
the acceptance by God of the sacrifice of his 
Son, then the resurrection at least has some other 
than a sacrificial meaning. Apart from the 
resurrection, the crucifixion of Jesus would have 
been a triumph for the Rulers of this Age, name- 
ly, the Evil Powers of the cosmos." But in the 
secret plan of God, devised in his wisdom, which 
was superior to the wisdom of these Rulers of 
this Age, Christ came forth victorious from their 
grasp. Death and the Grave had to surrender 
him. The resurrection therefore was God's first 
decisive victory over Satan, from the time when 
the first man passed under his sway by obeying 
him rather than God. Since it was by this one 
act of disobedience on the part of God's first 
son, Adam, that the many died, so by the act of 
obedience of this Second Adam the many shall 
be made to live. 100 Through this act of obedi- 
ence Jesus put himself in God's hands, as Adam 
89 1 Cor. 2:6-8. 100 Rom. 5:15. 



COSMIC REDEMPTION 57 

was at first, and enabled God to make trial of 
his strength with Satan. The fact that Satan 
could not hold Jesus in the region of the dead 
evinced the cosmic superiority of God over the 
Evil Powers. The resurrection of Jesus is there- 
fore the chief soteriological phenomenon to take 
place this side of the Parousia. Inasmuch as it 
marks the initial act in the final overthrow of 
Satan, it therefore inaugurates "the coming 
age." 101 It is thus a guaranty of the successful 
consummation of the entire program of the re- 
demption of the cosmos. 

In approaching a more minute study of Paul's 
interpretation of the death of Jesus, we shall lay 
aside the presupposition with which most inter- 
preters set out, namely, that in Romans 3:21-26 
we have Paul's doctrine of the atonement par 
excellence. We are aware that this amounts 
almost to a violation of an axiomatic law. The- 
ology, both exegetical and systematic, is shot 
through and through with the assumption that 
this classical passage represents distinctly the 
Pauline view of the saving significance of the 

101 The Christians believed themselves to be already liv- 
ing in the new age, that is, just upon the margin of it. 



58 PAUL'S DOCTRINE OF REDEMPTION 

death of Jesus. 102 The reasons for holding that 
this is not the case will be given later. 103 For 
the present we simply point out the result which 
has followed from the assumption above referred 
to. Having decided that the passage in question 
sets forth the death of Jesus as a substitutionary, 
atoning, sacrificial act, and that this act produces 
a psychic effect, of a reconciling character, upon 
both God the Father and man the sinner, inter- 
preters have proceeded to supply this meaning to 
other utterances of Paul. They make it apply not 
only to those utterances in which the death of 
Jesus is simply referred to, leaving the reader 
to supply the significance of that act, but also to 
those, or at least to some of them, in which it is 
evident that the whole framework and setting 
is entirely different from that in Romans 
3:21-26, passages from which it is impossible, 
by any legitimate methods of interpretation, to 
extract the theory derived from Romans 3:21- 
26, without first importing it into them. 

102 Weinel, Biblische Theologie des Neuen Testaments, 
2 AufL, Tubingen, 1913, 254. 

Jtilicher in J. Weiss : Die Schriften des Neuen Testa- 
ments, 2 Aufl., Gottingen, 1908, 241. 

103 See pp. 98-109. 



COSMIC REDEMPTION 59 

It has not been found convenient here to dis- 
cuss the death of Jesus under the conventional 
rubrics — Redemption, Reconciliation, Righteous- 
ness, Sacrifice, Ransom, Atonement. Some of 
our reasons will appear in the course of the dis- 
cussion, but our principal reason had best be 
given here. Since the days of F. C. Baur, stu- 
dents of Paul have been applying, only little by 
little, his principle of interpreting the Pauline 
letters as writings intended to meet particular 
situations and to answer specific questions which 
arose in the course of the Apostle's missionary 
work. The application of this principle has not 
yet become thorough-going and consistent. This 
is more true in the constructive field of Biblical 
theology than it is in the department of exegesis. 
In the present study, we have made the attempt 
to be consistent at this point. In his manner of 
debate, as well as in his manner of life, Paul be- 
came all things to all men, if by all means he 
might gain some. It cannot but lead to confu- 
sion to arrange his statements regarding the 
death of Jesus in a scheme of theology, which 
represents the conflated ideas of his interpreters 
from Clement of Rome to Schweitzer. To a de- 



60 PAUl/s DOCTRINE OF REDEMPTION 

gree not duplicated by any other doctrine, the 
death of Christ was forced into the foreground 
by the controversies of Paul's day. He handled 
the question in accordance with the dialectic de- 
mands of each community in which it arose. If 
we are to understand any given utterance of his 
on the subject, we must take our stand, as nearly 
as we may, precisely at the point from which 
he viewed it at that particular moment. Because 
of the controversial atmosphere in which this 
particular doctrine was discussed it is more nec- 
essary to observe this rule with regard to it than 
it is with regard to other doctrines, including 
the resurrection. Endeavoring then to adhere 
faithfully to this fundamental rule of historical 
interpretation, we proceed to answer the ques- 
tion with which we set out in this chapter, name- 
ly: By what means was salvation effected, or 
made possible? 

If we are correct in defining Paul's view of 
salvation as a deliverance from the Evil Powers 
of the cosmos, then we should expect the means 
by which salvation is effected to correspond with 
the end to be attained. Does Paul so represent 
the redemptive work of Christ? Is it cosmic or 



COSMIC REDEMPTION 6l 

sacrificial ? It has already been pointed out that 
this redemptive work includes both the death and 
resurrection of Jesus, but, waiving that point for 
the present, let us inquire regarding the death 
alone. Did it have to do primarily with meeting 
the demands of God's punitive nature, which, it 
is claimed by theology, required some expedient 
that would allow for the forgiveness of man's 
sins? Was the death of Jesus such an expedi- 
ent? Or was it, according to the ethical theories 
of the atonement, primarily a demonstration of 
God's love to man, designed to engender a cor- 
responding love in man for God ? Or again did 
it have to do with the overthrow of the Evil 
Powers of the cosmos? How does Paul answer 
these questions? That is our problem. 

We first consider three passages, taken from 
the letter to the Galatians. 104 In the language 
of the Revised Version (American Standard 
Edition), the first of these passages reads as 
follows : 

"Grace to you and peace from God the Father, 
and our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for 

104 Gal. 1:3-5; 3:13; 4:3-5. 



62 paul's doctrine of redemption 

our sins, that he might deliver us out of this 
present evil world, according to the will of our 
God and Father : to whom be the glory for ever 
and ever. Amen." 

It is customary to interpret the words, "who 
gave himself for our sins," as equivalent to, who 
gave himself up in death on account of our sins, 
in order to atone for them. 105 Explicitly, the 
passage does not say this. If this is its mean- 
ing, then it is an implied and not an expressed 
meaning. 106 The passage, taken just as it stands, 
expresses clearly and definitely the purpose which 
Jesus had in giving himself for our sins, namely, 
"that he might deliver us out of this present evil 
world, according to the will of our God and 
Father." The words which are here trans- 

105 Sieffert, in Meyer, Kommentar, Der Galaterbrief, 
9 AufL, Gottingen, 1899. Lightfoot: "A declaration of 
the true ground of acceptance with God. The Galatians 
had practically ignored the atoning death of Christ." St. 
Paul's Epistle to the Galatians, London and Cambridge, 
1869. 

108 Zahn recognizes this fact, but assumes that Paul had 
an atonement for sins in mind, and that his readers would 
so understand him, because they were accustomed to 
associate the phrase, "for our sins," which they read in 
their Greek Bible, with the sin offering. Zahn, Kom- 
mentar, Galaterbrief, 1905, p. 36 f. 



COSMIC REDEMPTION 63 

lated "out of this present evil world" 
are more accurately translated "out of this 
present evil age." It has already been 
pointed out that, according to Paul's dualis- 
tic philosophy, the history of the cosmos was 
divided into "the present age" and "the coming 
age," and, furthermore, that this division was 
not temporal alone, but moral as well, that is, 
indicative of the Powers, or Power, which ruled, 
or controlled these two ages respectively. For 
this terminology Paul was first of all probably 
indebted to post-exilic Judaism. 107 But in the 
present instance his use of it was particularly ap- 
propriate, since his Hellenistic readers, the Gala- 
tians, were strongly of the opinion that "this 
world" was ruled by Evil Powers, from which 
man needed to be saved. Among these Evil 
Powers Paul reckoned the law, at least in the 
form in which his Judaizing opponents advocated 
it. 108 At the very outset of the controversy, 
therefore, Paul declares that Jesus gave himself 

107 Bousset, Die Religion des Judentums im neutesta- 
mentlichen Zeitalter, 2 Aufl., Berlin, 1906, 278 ft*. 

108 For this whole subject see Bousset's excellent dis- 
cussions, in J. Weiss, Die Schriften des Neuen Testa- 
ments, 2 Aufl., Gottingen, 1908, II 31 ft*., 59 ff. 



64 paui/s doctrine of redemption 

up for us that he might deliver us from the Evil 
Powers of this present age. 109 

In this representation the redemptive work of 
Jesus is regarded as a cosmic phenomenon, an 
act in the world's drama, in which the power of 
God is arrayed against the evil spirits, who are 
holding men in their grasp and subjecting them 
to all sorts of torture. By some means, not dis- 
closed in this passage, but at any rate in accord- 
ance with the will of God, Christ rescues us 
from these Evil Powers. 

The other two passages in Galatians which 
have been referred to will be considered to- 
gether. They read as follows: 

"Christ redeemed us from the curse of the 
law r , having become a curse for us; for it is 
written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a 
tree." no 

"So we also, when we were children, were 
held in bondage under the rudiments of the 

109 Note the emphatic order of the words of the ap- 
proved reading, "out of the present age (which is) evil." 
The full meaning is that he might snatch us away from 
the Evil Powers which control this present age. 

110 Gal. 3:13. 



COSMIC REDEMPTION 65 

world : but when the fulness of the time came, 
God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born 
under the law, that he might redeem them that 
were under the law, that we might receive the 
adoption of sons. And because ye are sons, God 
sent forth the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, 
crying, Abba Father. So that thou art no longer 
a bondservant but a son; and if a son, then an 
heir through God." 1X1 

The word here translated "redeem" 112 is the 
same in both passages. It occurs but two addi- 
tional times in the New Testament. 113 Wherein 
consists the redeeming act of Christ? In the 
first of these passages Christ is said to redeem us 
from the curse of the law. In the second, he is 
said to redeem those who are under the law. In 
the former, the act of redemption is connected, 
in some way, with his death. In the latter, there 
is no mention of the death. 

-Gal. 4:3-7. 

€£ayopd£ut. 
113 Eph. 5:16; Col. 4:5. In both these passages it is used 
in connection with /caipds, time, or opportunity, and 
signifies "to make the most of the present allotted time, 
or opportunity." This usage throws no material light on 
the passage in hand. 



66 paul/s doctrine of redemption 

The fact should not be overlooked that the 
background of Paul's thought in these two pas- 
sages is very different, although on the surface it 
does not appear to be so. The entire section, 
Gal. 3 .7-4 17, constitutes an argument in answer 
to the question which he has raised in 3:1-6, 
namely, How could you, O Galatians, be so fool- 
ish as to exchange a Gospel of faith for one of 
law? The answer turns on the question of son- 
ship to Abraham, and Paul holds to that through- 
out the major portion of the passage, including 
4:3-7. But 3:10-14 constitutes a parenthesis in 
the thought, suggested probably by 3 : 9. The 
fact that those who are of faith are blessed with 
the faithful Abraham (vs. 9) suggests the condi- 
tion of those who are not of faith. They are 
under a curse, a fact which Paul finds supported 
by the Scripture which says: "Cursed is every 
one who continueth not in all things that are 
written in the book of the law to do them." 
Another Scripture, "Cursed is every one that 
hangeth on a tree," enables him to prove what 
he is chiefly interested in here, namely, that the 
law is not operative in the redemptive scheme. 
Christ, by hanging on a tree, became a curse. 



COSMIC REDEMPTION 6? 

He redeemed men from a curse. Christ, not the 
law, is the Redeemer. 

It is evident that Paul's logic is defective here. 
It by no means follows because Christ became 
subject to a particular curse, namely, the curse 
pronounced on malefactors who are hanged for 
the violation of particular provisions of the law, 
that he thereby brings to an end the operations 
of the entire law. Even the traditional interpre- 
tation of the death of Christ, as the ground for 
our exemption from the penalty of the violated 
law, does not fit this case, according to Paul's 
course of reasoning. We are forced, therefore, 
to the conclusion that we have here an instance 
of Paul's use of the rabbinical method of exe- 
gesis. 114 He was contending with extreme cham- 
pions of Judaistic theology, and used their 
weapons — scripture and rabbinical exegesis. 

With vs. 14 the parenthesis closes. Paul re- 
sumes his figure of sonship and around it dis- 
cusses such associated ideas as wills, descendants, 
inheritance and minority before the law, or legal 

114 For other examples of this type of exegesis, see Gal. 
3:16; 4:21-31. Cf. Wrede, Paulus, Halle, 1904, 49 f. Eng. 
trans., Paul, London, 1907, 78 f. 



68 PAUl/s DOCTRINE OF REDEMPTION 

infancy. 115 It is in such a setting, then, that we 
find the term redeem. There is no reference to 
such ideas as atonement, reconciliation, or for- 
giveness of sins. The antithesis which Paul has 
worked out at great pains is not that, on the 
one hand, of a sinner condemned because of 
law; and, on the other hand, of an avenging 
God, who must in some way have his sin-punish- 
ing nature satisfied in order to overlook the 
transgressions of his law. The antithesis is that 
of full legal sonship, on the one hand, and of 
legal infancy, or nonage, on the other. This 
legal infancy he further describes in terms of 
slavery, affirming that the heir in his nonage 
"does not differ from a slave, although he is 
lord of all, but is under guardians and stewards 
until the day appointed of the father (for his 
legal emancipation)." 116 This statement is 
somewhat exaggerated, but because of that very 
fact clearly indicates the vehemence with which 
Paul would make the important point of his ar- 
gument. This point reached, he is able to ad- 
vance his antithesis from legal sonship versus 



115 
116 



Gal. 3:15; 4:3. 
Gal. 4 : 1, 2. 



COSMIC REDEMPTION 69 

legal infancy to divine sonship versus slavery. 117 
This is the thought which he really wishes to ar- 
rive at and which is so prominent in this letter. 
But who are the slaves? Before Christ came 
and set men potentially free, all men were slaves. 
Since the emancipating work of Christ, those are 
still slaves who remain in the condition all were 
in before the coming of Christ, i. e., under the 
law. Who were the masters, or lords? "The 
elements of the cosmos." 118 The "elements" 
were personal, spiritual beings, not simple ab- 
stractions. They constituted the deities of the 
heathen, although "by nature they are not 
gods." 119 It was from these false divinities that 



117 Gal. 4:3. 

118 t a (TTotxeia rod k6<tixov (Gal. 4:3). 

119 i 



* On this interpretation see Everling, Die paulinische 
Angelologie und Damonologie, Gottingen, :888, 66-y6. 
Also the following literature cited by him, p. 70: Hilgen- 
feld, Der Galaterbrief, 1852, p. 66; Zeitschr. f. wissensch. 
Theologie, 1858, p. 99, i860, p. 208, 1866, p. 314. Lipsius, 
die paulinische Rechtfertigungslehre, 1853, p. S3. Holsten, 
Evangelium des Paulus, I. p. 169. Klopper, Der Brief 
an die Kolosser, pp. 360-389. Spitta, Der zweite Brief des 
Petrus und der Brief des Judas, Halle, 1885 (a. a. O. pp. 
265 ff.). See particularly Spitta's quotations from Jewish 
literature. See also Deissmann, Art. "Elements," in En- 
cyclopedia Biblica, and the literature cited by him. Cf. 
Bruckner, Die Entstehung der paulinischen Christologie, 
Strassburg, 1903, 225 ff. Dibelius, Die Geisterwelt im 



JO PAULS DOCTRINE OF REDEMPTION 

Christ had freed the Galatians. They had, be- 
fore becoming Christians, been "enslaved" to 
them, but, after they came to know God, or 
rather to be known by God, it was preposterous 
to think of their returning to their former en- 
slavement to deities which were impotent and 
contemptible. What has this line of reasoning, 
with which Paul concludes this section, to do 
with the redemption of men from the law? Our 
conclusion is that Paul must have included the 
law among these "elements of the cosmos/' for 
there is no evidence that the Galatians were con- 
templating in reality a return to their former 
idol worship. The only thing in contemplation 
was the adoption of the Jewish law as the basis 
of salvation. It is this adoption of the Jewish 
law as the basis of salvation which Paul charac- 
terizes as a return to the enslaving worship of 
the "elements." In other words, the law is one 
of these "elements," that is, a being, a sentient 
existence, an hypostasis, not simply a statute, 
prescription, command, or formal requirement. 

Glauben des Paulus, Gottingen, 1909, 78 fif. Bousset, in 
J. Weiss, Die Schriften des Neuen Testaments, Gottingen, 
2 Aufl., 1908, 59 f. 



COSMIC REDEMPTION Jl 

Accordingly, when Paul says that Christ re- 
deemed men from the curse of the law, or re- 
deemed those who were under the law, he means 
to say that Christ liberated them from the con- 
trol and dominion of a cosmic Power, that was 
in the same class with those demonic beings, 
which, as elements of the cosmos, the heathens 
revered as deities. 

Despite the juridical interpretation which the- 
ology has given to these two Galatian passages, 
it appears that, taken as they stand, without our 
introducing an assumed meaning for them (as 
Zahn, Sieffert and others do) they set before us 
the redeeming work of Christ, not forensically, 
but dynamically. In redeeming men, Christ en- 
countered and overcame the cosmic Powers, 
which are antagonistic to God and men. The 
contest was a losing one for men as long as they 
had to contend with those forces unaided. 
Christ appeared, sent by the Father, "in the ful- 
ness of time," as a Stronger One, and rescued 
men from the slavery to these Powers, to which 
slavery they had been appointed until the time set 
for their acquiring their legal emancipation. 120 
120 Gal. 4:2, 3. 



J2 PAUL'S DOCTRINE OF REDEMPTION 

That Paul gave to the redemptive work of 
Christ a dynamic and not a forensic value is 
borne out by another fact. In both passages 
under consideration Paul expresses the purpose 
of Christ's saving work in two different ways. 
In the first he says : "Christ redeemed us from 
the curse of the law, having become a curse for 
us ... in order that upon the Gentiles might 
come the blessing of Abraham in Jesus Christ, 
that we might receive the promise of the Spirit 
through faith/' 121 In the second he says : "But 
when the fulness of time came, God sent forth his 
Son, born of a woman, born under law, in order 
that he might redeem those who are under the law, 
that we might receive the adoption as sons." 122 

In both passages the saving work of Christ is 
spoken of, first, as a redemption from law, and, 
secondly, as an impartation of the Spirit. 123 In 
the first expression Paul chooses a terminology 
which is suggested by the contention of his 



121 Gal. 3: 13, 14. 

122 Gal. 4: 4, 5. 

123 ' 



'That "the adoption as sons" in Gal. 4:5 is equivalent 
to "that we might receive the promise of the Spirit 
through faith," in 3:14 is shown by the words following: 
"And because ye are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit 
of his Son into our hearts, crying 'Abba Father'" (4:6). 



COSMIC REDEMPTION 73 

Judaizing opponents. In the second expression 
he uses his own characteristic dynamic termin- 
ology. It is in this dynamic terminology rather 
than the other that he frames the incisive ques- 
tion, with which he introduces this section : "This 
alone would I learn from you, Received ye the 
Spirit through works of the law, or through the 
hearing of faith? . . . He therefore that sup- 
plieth to you the Spirit and worketh miracles 
among you (i. e., probably "by you") doeth he 
it through the works of the law or through the 
hearing of faith? 124 It is evident that, while 
Paul speaks of being redeemed from the law 
with its curse, his positive and characteristic way 
of expressing the salvation idea is not in terms 
of forensic or legal relationship, but of an initial 
cosmic victory over the Evil Powers by Christ 
and of an imparting by him to believers of his 
Spirit, which enables them to assert their su- 
premacy over these Evil Powers and thus to per- 
petuate the work of Christ. 125 

124 Gal. 3:2-5. 

123 From the standpoint of Greek thought Paul conceived 
of these Evil Powers as "the elements of the cosmos." 
From the standpoint of the Judaizers he regarded the 
"law" as one of them. 



74 paul's doctrine of redemption 

We turn next to an important passage in 
First Corinthians. The crucifixion of Jesus oc- 
cupies a prominent place in the earlier portion of 
this letter. 126 The more important verses are 
the following: 

"Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for 
you, or were ye baptized into the name of 
Paul? 127 "For Christ sent me not to baptize, 
but to announce the gospel, not in wisdom of dis- 
course, lest the cross of Christ be rendered use- 
less. For the message of the cross is to them 
that are perishing foolishness, but to us who are 
saved it is the power of God." 128 "We preach 
Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block and 
to Gentiles foolishness, but to those who are 
called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of 
God and the wisdom of God." 129 "For I de- 
termined not to know anything among you save 
Jesus Christ and him crucified." 13 ° 

The discussion of the death of Christ turned, 
in Galatians, on the question of method, or 
means, not on the question of ultimate fact. The 



i Cor. i : 10-2: 16. 127 1 Cor. 1 : 13. 

1 Cor. 1 : 17, 18. 123 1 Cor. 1 : 23, 24. 



126 

128 

180 1 Cor. 2 : 2. 



COSMIC REDEMPTION 75 

question was not regarding the fact of salvation, 
but regarding the method of procuring it. The 
fact of salvation was agreed to by all parties to 
the controversy. Paul even uses the fact that 
the Galatians were at the time actually in pos- 
session of the Spirit as an argument against the 
contention of the Judaizers regarding the method 
of securing salvation. A similar situation is pre- 
sented in Corinth. There is no dispute over the 
fact of salvation. The Paul party and the other 
parties agreed on that point perfectly. The 
question of difference between them pertained 
to the method of it. 

Similar as these two letters are in this respect, 
they are equally dissimilar in another respect. 
In Galatia Paul's controversy had to do with 
men who maintained that salvation became avail- 
able through the observance of law. In Corinth 
his controversy was with men who laid claim to 
a certain kind of superior knowledge, or wisdom, 
which obscured the central idea of the gospel, as 
Paul understood it. In neither case, however, 
was Paul combating a non-Christian religion. 
In both instances he was dealing with Christians, 
and, to use our modern parlance, with certain 



76 paul/s doctrine of redemption 

theories of Christianity, which were opposed to 
his own. He calls the opposing theory in 
Galatia "a different gospel." 1S1 The Corinthian 
theory he does not characterize as such, and in 
fact it was not a "different gospel/' in the sense 
in which the Galatian heresy was. It amounted 
rather to a misplaced emphasis on philosophical 
speculation. 

It is important to keep in mind these marked 
characteristics of the Galatian and First Corin- 
thian letters. No actor ever suited the word to 
the action or the action to the word more per- 
fectly than Paul suited his figures of speech to 
the particular form in which his opponents put 
forward their tenets. 132 In Galatians, he re- 
duced to an absurdity the contention that salva- 
tion became available through law, by showing 
that Christ, in becoming a curse under the law, 
or in being born under the law, rescued men 
from the dominion of the demonic Power, Law, 
which was one of man's cosmic enemies. In the 

131 Gal. i : 6. 

132 On Paul's skill in dialectic, see Wrede, Paulus, Halle, 
1904, 7, 24 f. Eng. trans., Paul, London, 1907, 4 f., 35 ff. 
On the elasticity of his methods of thought, cf. 48 f. Eng. 
trans., p. 77 f. 



COSMIC REDEMPTION JJ 

Corinthian letter, Paul reduces to an absurdity 
the claims which were made for a superior wis- 
dom by showing that God converted that so- 
called superior wisdom into foolishness. 

Now, the false emphasis on wisdom was found 
chiefly among a certain group of the members 
of the Corinthian church, namely, that group 
which is known as the Apollos party. It was to 
this group, in particular, that Paul addressed 
himself in the first three chapters. These par- 
tisans of Apollos laid store by two things, the 
one, that Apollos had baptized them, the other, 
that, through the possession of a superior knowl- 
edge, or wisdom, they had a better interpretation 
of the gospel than Paul had given them and, by 
this interpretation, got rid of the offense of the 
cross. It is with this offense of the cross that we 
are concerned just now. At bottom, the problem 
in Corinth was identical with that in Galatia — 
the offense of the cross. 138 

To us moderns the cross is the most precious 
of symbols, enshrined in art, made precious by 
song, immortalized by Paul and glorified by 
Christ. We share Paul's impatience with the 

'Gal. 5:11; 6:14. 



133 1 



yS PAUl/s DOCTRINE OF REDEMPTION 

Galatians and Corinthians in their endeavor to 
get from beneath its shadow. Under the spell 
of his rhetoric, we cannot but feel the baseness 
of the ingratitude and cowardice which prompted 
so recreant a procedure. But Paul's invective 
must not spoil our perspective. The simple fact 
is that the cross constituted an unspeakable bur- 
den for the early Christians. They were sur- 
rounded by Jews, to whom it was an occasion 
of offense. It was the storm center, not simply 
of intellectual controversy, as it appears to us 
on the written page, but of the actual life of the 
Christians. It was the chief occasion of the 
violent persecutions, which in that day came 
from the side of the Jews. 134 And, no wonder! 
The Christians charged that the Jews crucified 
Christ, 135 and then they held that this crucified 
Christ was the Savior of the world, thus making 
salvation dependent on one's committing himself 
to this Jesus whom the Jews had crucified. With 
the Greeks the doctrine of a crucified Redeemer 
encountered all but insuperable difficulties. To 

134 1 Thes. 2:14-16; Gal. 6:12. 

135 1 Thes. 2:15. This persecution existed in Judea, even 
where the Pauline type of gospel was not preached. 



COSMIC REDEMPTION 79 

the philosophically inclined it was an absurdity, 
foolishness. 

It is not surprising that, under such circum- 
stances, these early Christian communities, while 
holding to the fact, and, as they doubtless felt, 
to the essence of the new religion, were easily 
attracted to "a different gospel" from that which 
Paul preached, particularly if it avoided the of- 
fense of the cross. It is absolutely necessary to 
feel the full force of this fact if we are to under- 
stand Paul's utterances in the Galatian and Cor- 
inthian letters on the subject of the death of 
Jesus. This subject looms up large in these let- 
ters because therein Paul addresses himself to 
those who, in their endeavor to avoid the perse- 
cutions incident to the cross, were perverting the 
gospel. 136 

Turning now to Paul's method of meeting the 
arguments of the Apollos party, we find no ref- 
erence whatever to the law, whereas in Galatians 
nearly the entire discussion turns on that one 
point. On the other hand, there is not a single 

138 Paul uses the words cross and crucify thirteen times 
in the Galatian and Corinthian letters, five times in all 
the rest of his letters, not once in Romans. 



80 PAUI/S DOCTRINE OF REDEMPTION 

reference in Galatians to wisdom, or to the wise 
man, while in the first three chapters of First 
Corinthians there are more instances of the use 
of these words than in all the rest of Paul's 
writings, including the remainder of the Corin- 
thian letters. Paul first distinguishes between 
two kinds of wisdom. The one he calls the wis- 
dom of the world, 137 of men, 138 of this age, 139 
of the rulers of this age. 139 The other he calls 
the wisdom of God. 140 However the Apollos 
party may have characterized their wisdom, Paul 
classes it with the wisdom of men in contrast 
with the wisdom of God. It was not, for all 
that, an ungodly, irreligious wisdom, as we 
might imagine from Paul's estimate of it. It 
was a method of arriving at God, and of securing 
the same blessings, which Paul comprehended 
under his term salvation. 141 

137 1 Cor. i : 20, 21. 

138 1 Cor. 2 : 5. 

139 1 Cor. 2:6. 

140 1 Cor. i : 21, 24, 30; 2:6, 7. 

141 The statement that the Greeks seek wisdom while 
the Jews ask a sign (1 Cor. 1 122) shows that this wisdom 
belongs to the Hellenistic circle of ideas, not to the 
Jewish. Paul's attitude toward Apollos and his party, as 
compared with his severity toward the Judaizers, in 
Galatia, indicates that, while he realized the danger of 



COSMIC REDEMPTION 8 1 

In opposition to this wisdom as a means of 
attaining to salvation, Paul put the heralding of 
Christ crucified. In what manner the fact of 
Christ's crucifixion effected, or made possible, 
salvation he does not indicate. But one thing is 
noteworthy, namely, that there is nothing in the 
passage to show that the death of Christ was a 
sacrifice for sins. Wherein, then, lay its impor- 
tance ? Paul begins his argument by putting the 
word of the cross and the foolishness of preach- 
ing the crucified Christ in opposition to the wis- 
dom method of obtaining salvation. 142 This was 
a contrast between his method of evangelizing 
and that of Apollos. There is no attempt on his 
part to say how the actual work of salvation is 
brought about. That lies with God, both from 
Paul's point of view and from the point of view 
of Apollos. At the outset, Paul is not concerned 
with that question, but he approaches it in 1 124, 
where he shifts his phraseology in such a way as 
to bring out the fact that Christ himself, not the 
gospel, is the power and wisdom of God. In 

the wisdom philosophy of Apollos, he at the same time 
distinguished between it and the wisdom of the world. 
14a i Cor. 1:18, 21-23. 



82 PAUl/s DOCTRINE OF REDEMPTION 

that word power we have a clue to Paul's idea. 
Christ is a dynamic Savior. In so far then as 
Paul gives any indication whatever of the way 
in which Christ makes salvation possible for us 
it is in terms of power, not of sacrifice, atone- 
ment or reconciliation. 143 

Is it possible to go further and determine how 
this power of which Christ was the expression 
effected salvation? This is the important ques- 
tion. Paul answers it in terms of the particular 
controversy in hand. This salvation, he affirms, 
is in accordance with wisdom, not the wisdom 
in which the Apollos partisans were boasting, 
but the wisdom of God, a peculiar, mystery wis- 
dom, which is of cosmic significance, as is shown 
by the fact that it was hidden away secretly by 
God, who before the ages ordained it for our 
glory. It was hidden, especially from the cosmic 
Evil Powers of this age, who, because of their 
ignorance of this hidden purpose of God in 
Christ, put him to death. They thought, of 
course, that they were gaining another victory 
over God by doing away with his Son, but they 

143 The interpretation of the gospel in terms of power 
is re-enforced by reference to i Cor. 2:4, 5; 4:20; 5:4. 



COSMIC REDEMPTION 83 

fell victims to their own devices, and in crucify- 
ing the Lord of Glory brought about their own 
destruction. 144 

By an entirely different route we have reached 
the same point precisely to which we were led in 
our study of the death of Christ in Galatians. 
There it developed that the saving work of 
Christ is a cosmic, dynamic act. While Christ 
is said to redeem us from the curse of the law, 
what is really meant is that he has liberated 
us from the demonic Powers, or the cosmic 
Forces of Evil, of which one was the Law. In 
Corinthians likewise the saving fact in the re- 
demptive work of Christ is a cosmic phenom- 
enon. Christ encountered these demonic Pow- 
ers, here called "Rulers of this Age." In com- 
passing his death, they seemed to triumph over 
God. But no, it was only a mock victory. 

144 Cf . Lk. 22 13 ; Jn. 13 :2, 27. See Everling, Die pauli- 
nische Angelologie und D'dmonologie, Gottingen, 1888, 
11 ff. Kabisch, Die Eschatologie des Paulus, Gottingen, 
1^93, 177, 182. Wrede, Paulus, Halle, 1904, 58 f. Eng. 
trans., Paul, London, 1907, 95 f. Bousset, in J. Weiss, Die 
Schriften des Neuen Testaments, 2 Aufl., Gottingen, 1908. 
Dibelius, Die Geisterwelt im Glauben des Paulus, Gottin- 
gen, 1909, 88 ff. For Patristic citations see W. Bauer, 
Das Leben Jesu im Zeitalter der neutestamentlichen 
Apokryphen, Tubingen, 1909, 522 ff. 



84 PAUl/s DOCTRINE OF REDEMPTION 

Christ, despite his apparent defeat, was the real 
victor. His death was only one act in the drama. 
If nothing else had followed he would have been 
the vanquished one. But something else did fol- 
low. There was another act to the drama, and 
that act demonstrated beyond question that the 
demons, the Evil Forces of the cosmos, including 
even the most formidable of them, namely, 
Death, had been worsted in the contest. 

Additional evidence for the cosmic interpreta- 
tion of the death of Christ is found in i Cor. 
8:11, which reads as follows: "For on account 
of your (superior) knowledge the weak one, 
namely, the brother for whom Christ died, per- 
ishes." Rom. 14:15 contains the same thought. 
Paul was dealing with a practical problem, which 
arose in consequence of the custom among Chris- 
tians of eating meat offered to idols, either par- 
taking of it in the idols' temples, as at Corinth, 
according to the context, or at social gatherings 
where meat was eaten which had been sold in 
the markets, after having been offered to 
idols. 145 According to 1 Cor.io:i9-2i, Paul did 
not regard idols as gods, but he did regard them 

145 1 Cor. 10:25. 



COSMIC REDEMPTION 85 

as demons. Hence, he conceived it to be possible 
for a believer, while eating meat offered to idols, 
to have communion with demons. 146 To do this 
was to "perish," for it meant to fall again into 
the power of these demons, from which to res- 
cue men "Christ died." The death of Jesus is 
therefore thought of, not in terms of reconcilia- 
tion, or atonement with reference to God, but as 
an act of liberation from the demonic Powers. 
From this reference it is also to be inferred that 
the death of Jesus is efficacious for one's salva- 
tion only so long as he continues in dynamic 
contact with God, through whose power alone he 
is made superior to his superhuman foes. 147 

The eschatological, cosmic and dynamic sig- 
nificance of the redemptive work of Christ is 
more fully elaborated in the Ephesian and Colos- 
sian epistles than elsewhere in Paul's writings. 
This fact was occasioned of course by the strong 
Gnostic influence which was at work in the 
churches to which these letters were sent. Fun- 
damentally considered, however, the teaching of 
these letters regarding the redemption wrought 
by Christ does not differ materially from that 
148 1 Cor. 10:20. 147 See Chapter IV. 



86 paul's doctrine of redemption 

which we find in the Galatian, Roman and Cor- 
inthian letters. While it has been a common 
practice to challenge the authenticity of these ut- 
terances on the ground of their un-Pauline char- 
acter, the tendency in this direction grows weaker 
as we become better acquainted with Gentile 
thought in the days of Paul. In the light of this 
fuller orientation, it is an open question as to 
whether the thought-forms of Ephesians and Co- 
lossians may not have been decidedly more con- 
genial to Paul's mind than those found in Rom. 
3 121-26. 

The principal passages which call for consid- 
eration are strikingly similar, and may, for our 
purpose, be examined together. 148 The eschato- 
logical character of man's salvation is strongly 
brought out in such expressions as : for the praise 
of his glory; adoption as sons; sealed in the 
gospel of our salvation by the Holy Spirit of 
promise, which is a guaranty in this life of the 
future redemption; the hope of his calling; the 
riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints. 
In Colossians, the eschatological aspect of salva- 
tion is expressed when it is said to procure a 

148 Eph. 1:3-23; Col. 1:3-23. 



COSMIC REDEMPTION 87 

portion of the lot of the saints in light, and 
to rescue us out of the power of darkness (per- 
taining to this life) and to transport us into the 
kingdom of the Son of his love. 

The dynamic and cosmic character of salva- 
tion is indicated in the following expressions, 
taken from the Ephesian passage : "the one who 
works in all things;" 149 "the exceeding great- 
ness of his power to us who believe according to 
the inworking of the might of his power, which 
he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from 
the dead, and made him to sit at his right hand, 
etc/' 150 The form in which this power was 
manifested is also indicated, namely, in the rais- 
ing of Christ from the dead and in the seat- 
ing of him at the right hand in the heavens, 
far above the hosts of intermediary beings, such 
as the Rulers, Authorities, Powers and Lord- 
ships. Along with these demonstrations of that 
cosmic power which was operative in Christ goes 
the putting of all enemies under his feet and the 
elevation of Christ to the headship of all 
things. 151 

149 Eph. 1:11. 150 Eph. 1:19, 2G. 

151 Eph. 1 120-23. 



88 paul's doctrine of redemption 

In Colossians the dynamic aspect of salvation 
is similarly expressed. 152 The statement that 
Christ snatched us from the Power of Darkness 
and transported us into the kingdom of the Son 
of his love is strikingly dramatic. The more 
distinctively cosmic significance of Christ himself 
is brought out in the section following. 153 

It is worthy of notice that Paul maintains al- 
most a uniform silence regarding the actual 
process by which the saving work of Christ was 
accomplished. This is the case, whether one 
view that work dynamically or sacrificially. 
Theology has never been able to tell just why 
or how the death of Christ could and did effect a 
reconciliation with God. Theories have been ad- 
vanced to explain it, but these theories have been 
drawn largely from analogies in human affairs, 
whether judicial, governmental or parental. 
They have been imported into the Pauline the- 
ology, and not drawn from it. Likewise, if one 
examines those passages in which the cosmic and 
dynamic character of the redemptive work of 
Jesus is indicated, he will find as a rule, state- 
ments of fact, not of method of procedure, or of 

163 Col. 1:11-13. 153 Col. 1:15-23. 



COSMIC REDEMPTION 89 

philosophy. How the death and resurrection of 
Jesus accomplished for men a rescue from the 
Evil Powers is usually left undisclosed. 

This striking fact may, in part at least, be ac- 
counted for by Paul's use of the word mystery. 
When using this word, he seems to have in mind 
the real content, or gist of the gospel, as in the 
words, "Christ in you the hope of glory," 154 or 
in the following summary of the outstanding 
facts of the gospel, which taken together are de- 
nominated "the mystery of righteousness." 
These outstanding facts are that Christ was : 

"Manifest in the flesh, 
Justified in (the) Spirit, 
Seen of angels. 
Preached among the nations 
Believed on in the world 
Received up into glory." 155 

To this rule of silence touching the actual 
process by which redemption was accomplished, 
there seems to be one exception, a passage which 

154 Col. 1 : 26, 27. 

155 1 Tim. 3:16. The fact that this passage is found in 
one of the Pastoral Epistles has no special significance 
here, since each of the items here enumerated can be 
duplicated in the acknowledged group of letters, as con- 
stituting the momenta of the soteriological career of 
Jesus. 



90 PAUL S DOCTRINE OF REDEMPTION 

reads, in the Revised Version, as follows: 
"Having despoiled (Margin : having put off from 
himself) the principalities and the powers, he 
made a show of them openly, triumphing over 
them in it." 156 It is not improbable that we have 

156 Col. 2:15. Bousset, in his article on Gnosticism 
(Encyclopedia Britannica, Ed. 11, p. 154), has an inter- 
esting suggestion regarding this difficult passage : "In 
the Manichaean system it is related how the helper of 
the Primal Man, the spirit of life, captured the evil 
archontes, and fastened them to the firmament, or ac- 
cording to another account, flayed them, and formed the 
firmament from their skin (F. C. Baur, Das manich'dische 
Religionssystem, Tubingen, 1831, 65), and this conception 
is closely related to the other, though in this tradition 
the number (seven) of the archontes is lost. Similarly, 
the last book of the Pistis Sophia contains the myth of 
the capture of the rebellious archontes, whose leaders 
here appear as five in number (Schmidt, Koptisch-gnos- 
tische Schriften, p. 234, seq.)." Here is attached the fol- 
lowing foot-note : "These ideas may possibly be traced 
still further back, and perhaps even underlie St. Paurs 
exposition in Col. 2:15." Bousset made the same sugges- 
tion, and with similar caution, in his Hauptprobleme der 
Gnosis, Gottingen, 1907, 54. The Gnostic citations which 
he gives seem not to have influenced his translation 
of aireKdw&fjLevos, which has given interpreters much 
trouble. He supplies Christus as subject, and trans- 
lates : "Christ drew off their military equipment from 
the Mighty Ones and the Powers'' (Christus den 
M'dchten ihre Rustung abgezogen). May not direKdiJOfxai 
mean to Hay? This meaning is not remote from Col. 
3:9. The appropriateness of the use of the substantive 
in Col. 2:11 is noted, though not precisely in this sense, 



COSMIC REDEMPTION 91 

here a ray of light thrown on the occult passage, 
"seen of angels/' 157 

There are several passages in the Corinthian 
letters which call for consideration because of 
the fact that, at first glance, they seem to indi- 
cate an atoning value attaching to the death of 
Christ. The first of these reads as follows: 

by Abbott, International Critical Commentary on Eph- 
esians and Colossians } New York, 1897. The following 
(quoted by Dibelius, p. 138) is suggestive. Hades inter- 
rogates Satan : 5t' iroiav dvdyKrjv ojKovofX'qc as aravpoodijpai top 
fia<rik£a ttjs 86%r)S els rb e\6eiv &5e kolI e/cSucrcu ^as,* "Through 
what sort of necessity did you come to crucify the King 
of Glory and thereby to bring him here to strip (or flay) 
us?" Act. Pit. XXIII. (Discens. VII.). That iicdfo with 
hipfia means to flay is shown by the following: Mapo-tfaf 
rb dtpua e/c5tfercu "Marsyas is flayed." Palaeph. 48. 3. It is not 
intended to suggest that the verb as Paul uses it means 
literally to flay, but that its use here is due to this primi- 
tive notion which Bousset believes to underlie the passage. 
We should supply neither the word skin nor military 
equipment, but should abstract the notion and translate: 
deprived of their power. 

After I had written the foregoing note, my attention 
was called to the following translation of Col. 2:15 by 
Nairne : "Having stripped off the garment of authorities 
and powers which seemed His right, He publicly flouted 
such shows of divinity after having led them captives in 
His truly triumphal progress to the cross." Nairne, The 
Epistle of Priesthood, Edinburgh, 1913, p. 67 note. The 
point of chief interest is the translation of direicdvcrdfjLevos 
by the phrase, "having stripped off the garment." 

157 1 Tim. 3:16. 



92 PAUL S DOCTRINE OF REDEMPTION 

"For our Passover has been sacrificed even 
Christ." 158 On the surface, this looks like a 
direct and explicit statement of the fact that the 
death of Christ was regarded by Paul as a sacri- 
fice for sins, effecting a propitiation of God in 
our behalf. If this thought was present to the 
Apostle's mind, it receives no emphasis in the 
passage. The context is pronouncedly ethical not 
theological. 159 Paul was handling a case of gross 
immorality. He was surprised and disappointed 
that the Corinthians, instead of being humiliated 
over gross sin in their midst, were puffed up. 
They should have ejected the offending person 
from their midst at once. According to Paul's 
conception, the life of the individual Christian 
should be free from sin. Likewise, the Corin- 
thian community, that is, the local church, 
should be actually and literally free from sinful 
members. The presence of this flagrant and un- 
repenting sinner in the Corinthian church 
brought before his mind the picture of leaven 
in a mass of meal. A small quantity affects an 
entire mass. From this he easily passed to the 
Jewish custom of clearing the house of all leaven 
158 1 Cor. 57. 159 i Cor. 5:1-8. 



COSMIC REDEMPTION 93 

before the beginning of the Passover. Regard- 
ing the ethical offender still as this leaven, which 
should be exterminated from the house, he ex- 
horts the Corinthians to get rid of him, in order 
that they may become a new lump of meal, "just 
as you are," hypothetically, "leavenless," that is, 
free from sin and sinners. The statement in 
question is at this point abruptly thrown in and 
is followed by one which shows that it did not 
divert the Apostle's interest from the ethical to 
the theological. Together they read as follows : 
"For our Passover, Christ, has been sacrificed; 
wherefore let us keep the feast, not with old 
leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and 
wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sin- 
cerity and truth." 

Everything goes to show that it was the sea- 
son, or time of the Passover, rather than the 
slain lamb, the victim of the Passover, which was 
important. 160 It was the season of the feast, not 
the victim, which called for the house-cleaning. 
Paul pictured the supposedly brief period of time 

169 to Tr&ffxa (the paschal sacrifice) frequently means 
the season of the passover. Mt. 26:2; Mk. 14:1; Lk. 2:41; 
22:1; Jn. 2:13, 23; 6:4; 11:55; 12:1; 13:1; 18:39; 19:14; 
Acts 12:4; Heb. 11:28. 



94 PAUL S DOCTRINE OF REDEMPTION 

in which they were then living, namely, the 
period between the death of Christ and his Par- 
ousia, as a kind of Paschal- feast time. As such, 
it was a time in which the house, that is, the lo- 
cal Christian community, should be absolutely 
and literally free from leaven, in this case, the 
ethical offender. 161 

But even if one is disposed to press the anal- 
ogy between the dying Christ and the Paschal 
lamb, he will find it difficult to extract from it 
the idea of propitiation. Originally the paschal 
lamb was slain, not for the purpose of averting 
God's anger, or wrath, but for the purpose of 
marking the homes of the Israelites in such a 
way as to divert the destroying angel. The ex- 
pedient was devised by God in his love for his 
people, and was thereafter celebrated as a mem- 
orial, not of God's propitiation, but of the great 
deliverance which he wrought for his people. 

In i Cor. 6 : 20 and 7 : 23 there occurs the ex- 
pression, "You were bought with a price." In 
both passages the important consideration is the 

161 The last word on the subject shows that the im- 
portant thing was to get rid of the offender: "Cast out 
the evil one from among you" (1 Cor. 5:13), perhaps 
with Deut. 24:7 in mind. 



COSMIC REDEMPTION 95 

fact of God's proprietorship in the Christian, not 
the process of purchase. In the first instance, 
Paul reminds the Corinthians that they are not 
at liberty to do what they please with their 
bodies, since their bodies are God's temples, their 
owners being his property by right of purchase. 
In the second instance, Paul is pointing out, 
rather after the manner of the Stoic philosophy 
of his day, the fact that it is a matter of indif- 
ference whether one be a slave or a freeman, 
provided he be a believer, for in that case he is 
a freeman, although he is a slave of God, since 
he belongs to God by purchase. 

In both cases Paul seems to be using a figure 
drawn from the common custom of freeing 
slaves through their fictitious purchase by a 
deity, at whose temple the transaction took 
place. 162 As is frequently the case with Paul's 
analogies, so with this one there is wanting a 
complete correspondence between the custom of 
his time and the point he is making. In i Cor. 
6 : 19, 20 he blends the notion of temple with that 
of slavery. The bodies of believers belong to 
God as his temples. Almost as an afterthought 

162 See p. 28, Note 54. 



96 paui/s doctrine of redemption 

is thrown in the fact that the owners of these 
bodies are bought with a price, whether as slaves 
or as buildings is not stated. In 1 Cor. 7 : 23 the 
figure is much more fitting. The ransom price is 
paid by God, whose slaves the ransomed be- 
come. 

In neither case does Paul tell what the ransom 
price was, but he presumably thought of it as the 
death of Christ. 163 Nor does he state who the 
former lord, or owner, of the ransomed one was, 
to whom, according to the custom, the ransom 
price was paid. These passages throw no light 
on this question, except that the price was not 
paid to God, as certain interpretations of the 
atonement have required. This fact is clearly 
brought out in 1 Cor. 6: 19, 20, where God is 
represented to be the purchaser. 

There remains still for examination the im- 
portant passage in Rom. 3:21-26, and two be- 
sides, which will be considered in connection with 
it. We have already noted the fact that the 
passage in Romans is the one most of all to 
which theology has gone for its understanding 
of Paul's interpretation of the death of Jesus. 

163 Cf. 1 Pet. 1 : 18, 19; Rev. 5 : 9- 



COSMIC REDEMPTION 97 

The result has been a sacrificial and propitiatory 
view of redemption, rather than a dynamic and 
cosmic view of it. 

The crux of the problem which this passage 
presents is thus succinctly stated by Sanday : "It 
is impossible to get rid from this passage of the 
double idea (i) of a sacrifice; (2) of a sacrifice 
which is propitiatory. . . . And further, when 
we ask, Who is propitiated? the answer can 
only be 'God/ " 164 With minor changes, here 
and there, this interpretation may be taken as 
typical of that of the majority of scholars. 165 
It is important to indicate the leading ideas on 
which it is based and to determine whether or 
not these ideas may be thoroughly established 
from the remainder of the Pauline literature. 

In the main, it rests on five presuppositions : 

1. That propitiation or propitiatory (l^ a(rT VP L0V ) 
can refer here only to God. Whether the 

^International Critical Commentary on the Epistle to 
the Romans, New York, 1895, P- 9 1 - 

165 B. Weiss, in Meyer, Kommentar, Der Brief an die 
Romer, 9 Aufl., Gottingen, 1899. Zahn, Kommentar, 
Romerbrief, Leipzig, 1910. Lipsius, in Holtzmann, 
Hand-C ommentar sum Neuen Testament, Freiburg, 1892. 
Julicher, in J. Weiss, Die Schriften des Neuen Testaments, 
2 Aufl., Gottingen, 1908. 



98 PAUl/s DOCTRINE OF REDEMPTION 

context requires this reference or not is open to 
question. That the word itself requires it seems 
not to have been proved. 166 

2. The use of the word righteousness (St/cato- 
(tvvt)) taken in connection with God, accord- 
ing to which he is compelled to punish all 
transgressions against his law. 167 Now, if this 
word has this meaning here, the usage has no 
parallel elsewhere in Paul, unless it be in Rom. 
3 15, which itself is doubtful. Everywhere, aside 
from these three instances in question, 168 it has 
an entirely different meaning, we might almost 
say an exactly opposite meaning, according to 
which, instead of being an attribute of God, it is 
a state, or condition of man. 169 Instead of its 

165 According to Deissmann, it may refer either to God or 
to men, Zeitschrift fur die neutestamentliche Wissen- 
schaft, 4 (1903) p. 193. Regarding its meaning he has 
the following to say : It "signifies 'the propitiatory thing/ 
'the means of propitiation.' What the propitiatory thing 
that is actually intended may be has to be determined in 
each case by the context." Art. Mercy Seat in Encyclo- 
pedia Biblica, 1902. 

16T Zahn, Kommentar, Der Romerbrief, 1 und 2 Aufl., 
Leipzig, 1910, 192, 196. 

168 Rom. 3 : 5, 25, 26. B. Weiss, in Meyer, Der Brief an 
die Rbmer, 9 Aufl., Gottingen, 1899. 

169 Deissmann holds that throughout this passage the 
word has only this meaning. Zeitschrift fur die neutes- 



COSMIC REDEMPTION 99 

representing an inherent necessity laid upon God 
to punish sin, it signifies the sinner's acceptance 
with God and the assurance of immunity from 
punishment for his sins. 170 That two such an- 
tagonistic meanings should attach to the same 
word, and in the same context, without some ex- 
planatory statement, is hardly probable. 

3. The use of the word just (SiWos) in the 
sense of hostility to sin, by which an anti- 
thesis is established between it and the cognate 
verb following. Accordingly the thought runs : 
In order that he might evince his hostility to sin 
and yet accept, without punishing, the man who 
exercises faith in Jesus. 171 This meaning for 
Straws is not discoverable elsewhere in Paul's 
letters. It is uniformly used in a good, favor- 
able and kindly sense. 

4. God is represented as sacrificing Jesus in 
order to propitiate himself. We may well be- 

tamentliche Wissenschaft, 4 (1903) p. 211. Julicher 
adopts this meaning in verse 26, leaving, according to 
him, only two exceptions to the uniform meaning, namely, 
Rom. 3 : 5, 25. J. Weiss, Die Schriften des Neuen Testa- 
ments, 2 Aim 1 ., Gottingen, 1908. 

170 Rom. 1:17; 3:21, 22; 10:3; Phil. 3:9. 

171 Rom. 3 : 26. Sanday's effort to relieve his interpreta- 
tion of this antithesis does not appear to be successful. 



IOO PAUl/s DOCTRINE OF REDEMPTION 

lieve that this paradox would have been as dif- 
ficult of explanation for the Christians of the 
first century, whether Jews or Greeks, as it is 
for those of the twentieth. We can afford to 
raise the question whether or not such a repre- 
sentation can be consistently held to without its 
being clearly vouched for by other utterances of 
Paul. 

5. The nature of God is such that he can for- 
give sins, provided he metes out punishment to 
someone, but he cannot forgive sins if punish- 
ment is not inflicted on someone. This thought, 
which is the foundation of the usual interpreta- 
tions of this passage, as well as of the pro- 
pitiatory theories of the death of Jesus, does 
violence to our notions of God, and ascribes 
to him a moral standard far below what 
Jesus required of men. 172 If it be said that 
it is distinctly a Pauline teaching, and in some 
way to be explained on the basis of his rab- 
binic training, this explanation must account 
for two facts : first, such an idea finds nowhere 

172 Mt. 6:12-15; 18:21-35. Is the difficulty diminished 
or increased by the fact that the victim was himself in- 
nocent and therefore not deserving of the punishment? 



COSMIC REDEMPTION IOI 

else explicit expression in the utterances of Paul ; 
and, secondly, the bulk of Paul's teachings on 
the attitude of God to the sinner shows that at- 
titude to be one of love, far surpassing human 
love. 173 

If we approach this passage untrammeled by 
the interpretation which is usually given it, we 
observe at the outset that the theme of Romans 
is not that God has provided salvation through 
the propitiatory death of Jesus. As first an- 
nounced, it is as follows : 

"For I am not ashamed of the gospel : for it is 
the power of God unto salvation to every one 
that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the 
Greek. For therein is revealed a righteousness 
of God from faith unto faith, as it is written, 
But the righteous shall live by faith." 174 

The salient points in this statement are that 
the gospel is the power of God at work for sal- 
vation through faith on the part of those who 
accept it, whether they be Jews or Greeks. The 

173 On the difficulties presented to our thought by the 
customary interpretation of this passage, see Sanday, op. 
cit. pp. 93 f. and Julicher in J. Weiss, Die Schriften des 
Neuen Testaments, 2 Aufl., Gottingen, 1908, II. 242. 

174 Rom. 1:16, 17. 



102 PAULS DOCTRINE OF REDEMPTION 

gospel is regarded from the dynamic, not from 
the sacrificial point of view, that is, if we take 
the words just as they stand. Analyzing the 
material lying between these verses and 3 : 21-26, 
we find that it constitutes a long parenthesis, and 
that 3:21-26 amounts to a resumption or re- 
statement of the theme as found in 1 : 16, 17. 175 
Now if the words righteousness and just be 
given their ordinary sense according to Paul's 
usage, and if propitiatory be referred to men and 
not to God, we have a meaning in these words 

175 In Rom. 1:18-3:20 Paul proves that all men, Jews 
as well as Gentiles, need salvation from the impending 
doom. But this long argument has removed the theme of 
the epistle to a great distance. Hence he states it afresh 
(3:21-26). In 3:21, 22a there is no essential addition 
to 1:16, 17. In 3:22b, 23 there is an epitome of 1:18- 
3 :20, that is, the necessity for salvation on the part of all, 
Jews and Gentiles. In 3 :24-26 there is an answer to 
the question as to how the salvation referred to has been 
made and is available for men. This availability rests 
upon faith in Christ, who by his redemptive act, has ef- 
fected salvation. Verses 27-31 of Chap. 3 answer objec- 
tions and expand the thought, "to the Jew first and also 
to the Greek" (1:16b). With Chap. 4, the argument pro- 
ceeds in line with the problem of the letter, namely, the de- 
nying of the claim of the Jew that Judaism presented to 
men the true and only way of salvation. The absence of 
the word Uvafxis does not eliminate the idea of power, for 
that notion is involved in faith, which Paul regards 
dynamically, not intellectually. 



COSMIC REDEMPTION IO3 

throughout consistent with Paul's thought. It 
runs as follows : God set forth Christ as an act 
for the propitiation of men through faith in his 
blood for the purpose of showing God's willing- 
ness, in his forbearance, to accept men as right- 
eous, despite the sins of the past, for the purpose 
of showing this plan of acceptance, which he has 
brought forth at this present time in order to 
show himself to be fair and good and therefore 
ready to receive the man who puts his faith in 
Christ. 

It may be objected that this interpretation 
gives to the death of Christ purely an ethical sig- 
nificance. This would be the case, no doubt, if 
this were Paul's only word on the subject, or if 
all his other utterances were framed on this 
model. But neither of these alternatives corre- 
sponds with the facts. We believe that it has 
been clearly shown in our study that Paul, in nu- 
merous instances, spoke of the death of Jesus as 
a cosmic and dynamic fact, which, along with 
his resurrection, effected a deliverance of man- 
kind from the control of the Evil Powers of the 
cosmos. The significant thing about the repre- 
sentation in Rom. 3: 21-26, is that it is highly 



104 PAUL S DOCTRINE OF REDEMPTION 

dramatic and that the purpose of the dramatic 
presentation is to make clear to men, to show 
forth to them, God's righteousness, whether 
righteousness be regarded as an attribute of God 
or as a God-provided state of acceptance with 
himself assured to men in Christ. The impor- 
tant point is that Paul conceives the death of 
Christ as producing a dramatic effect upon the 
minds of men, whether we interpret the ultimate 
effect of that death as a propitiation of God, or 
as an overcoming of the demonic Powers. 

If this is so, we have in Rom. 3: 21-26, not 
Paul's primary or fundamental conception of the 
death of Jesus, but a secondary, or homiletical 
conception of it. Aside from the part which it 
played in the actual accomplishment of salvation, 
it had a subsidiary result in the effect which it 
produced on the minds of men in their attitude 
to God. It served to reconcile men to God. 
Such reconciliation was necessary, because men, 
under the dominion of Sin, had committed many 
actual transgressions. These transgressions con- 
stituted them the slaves and allies of God's en- 
emy, Sin. God could not count them as his sons, 
the heirs of his blessedness, so long as they con- 



COSMIC REDEMPTION IO5 

tinued their alliance with his foe. This alliance 
had to be broken and a new one formed. Men 
had to muster in as God's forces, array them- 
selves against the demonic Powers, and become 
positive in their attitude towards the good. But 
because of their alliance with God's cosmic ene- 
mies, men knew that his wrath must be visited 
on them. It had been revealed from heaven. 176 
In the eschatological catastrophe they would 
share a fate similar to that which awaited the 
demonic Powers, to whom they owed allegiance. 
There was no hope for men in this condition. 
By their own acts they had constituted them- 
selves the enemies of God, and there was noth- 
ing to do but wait for his judgment. They had 
no reason to think that God would be willing 
to regard them in any other light than that of 
enemies. But the death of Christ demonstrated 
this view to be erroneous. For the death of 
Christ was an expression, not only of God's love 
for men in general, but of God's love for men 
who are hostile to him. 177 This demonstration 
of God's love was a guaranty of the fact that it 
was possible for men to shift their allegiance 
'Rom. 1:18. 177 Rom. 5 : 7, 8. 



176 I 



io6 paul's doctrine of redemption 

from Satan to God. It constituted therefore the 
basis of reconciliation. 

As we have said, the idea of reconciliation was 
not primary in the death of Christ. It was in- 
cidental. As far as men were concerned it was 
necessary, but this necessity lay entirely in men. 
There was nothing whatever from the side of 
God that required it. Despite the absence from 
the Pauline writings of any statement to the ef- 
fect that it was necessary from God's side, inter- 
preters have predicated a necessity arising out 
of the nature of the case, so to speak. The 
very notion of reconciliation, we are told, re- 
quires an effect to be produced upon both parties 
to the reconciliation. This theory presupposes a 
sacrificial significance to attach to the death of 
Christ, and recognizes but three parties to the 
transaction — God the injured one, Man the of- 
fender, Christ the victim. If the demonic Pow- 
ers be introduced as a fourth factor into the 
problem, Christ becomes a deliverer, who, in 
man's behalf, enters the field against them. 
Can he be at the same time a victim sacrificed 
to God? The two ideas seem to be mutually 
exclusive. If Christ was a sacrifice reconciling 



COSMIC REDEMPTION IO7 

God, then it is inconceivable that he should also 
be a cosmic Redeemer vanquishing God's ene- 
mies, the Evil Powers. 

In contemplating the death of Christ, Paul 
does not think of God as a deity whose wrath 
must be appeased nor as a judge who must be 
provided with some extraordinary expedient, by 
which he may not be too lenient regarding the 
past violations of his law, and yet at the same 
time forgive transgressions of that law. Paul 
regards God rather as a helper, a champion of 
those who are engaged in an unequal contest, 
namely, men of flesh and blood contending with 
an adversary, or rather innumerable adversaries, 
of a higher order of being, and consequently 
superior to men both in intellect and power. 
Christ, God's representative, his chosen cham- 
pion, goes to the rescue of men. He goes in 
love and sympathy. The secret plan devised by 
God for overthrowing these stronger foes was 
the death of Christ. 178 This therefore was 
primary. The death of Christ had its necessity 
not in men, not in men's sins, not in God, but in 
the wisdom of God as he confronted the task 
178 1 Cor. 2 7-10. 



108 PAUl/s DOCTRINE OF REDEMPTION 

of rescuing men from the sovereignty of Satan, 
under whose power Adam's disobedience had 
placed them. 

To put his Son at the mercy of the demonic 
Powers and to permit them to put him to death 
by the shameful means of the cross was an act 
of supreme love on the part of God. As indis- 
putable evidence of that love, it assures men 
that, if they desire to transfer their allegiance 
from these Powers of evil to God and thereby be- 
come sharers in the victory he has wrought over 
these Powers, there will be no barrier to their 
doing so, in so far as God is concerned. 

In the foregoing interpretation of this classical 
passage, all the factors in the redemptive prob- 
lem are harmoniously related. There is no con- 
flict between God's wrath and his love, or be- 
tween his justice and his mercy. His love for 
man is uniform and his wrath against the Evil 
Powers is uniform. His wrath against man's 
transgressions is secondary. It is a consequence 
of man's alliance with these Powers. God the 
Father did not punish an innocent sacrificial vic- 
tim in permitting his Son to die for men, for his 
death was not a sacrifice propitiating God, but 



COSMIC REDEMPTION IO9 

a cosmic encounter. Christ alone could perform 
this work, because man, in the weakness of sin- 
ful flesh, was unable to cope with superhuman 
adversaries. The death of Jesus was therefore 
vicarious, but its vicarious character was due, not 
to the fact that God put him to death instead of 
us, but because only by his death and resurrec- 
tion could he vanquish our enemies and set us 
free, and thus make it possible for us to live 
eternally with God. 

The two passages that, as we have said, should 
be considered in connection with Rom. 3:21-26, 
and in the light of the interpretation which we 
have given to it, are: Gal. 2: 15-21 and 2 Cor. 
5 : 1 1-6 : 2. The Galatian passage deals with the 
question of righteousness; the Corinthian pas- 
sage, with the question of reconciliation. 

The Galatian passage contains Paul's argument 
against Peter at Antioch. Over the fact that 
men attained unto righteousness, or acceptance 
before God, there was no dispute. The only 
point of difference between Paul and the Judaiz- 
ers was as to the means or method by which 
righteousness was attained to, the alternatives 
being faith in Christ, or works of the law. 



IIO PAULS DOCTRINE OF REDEMPTION 

Verses 15-18 contain little more than a repeated 
asseveration of Paul's contention that righteous- 
ness was through faith in Christ. The question 
as to how righteousness, or salvation, is made a 
possibility in the economy of God is not touched. 
The discussion is practical, not philosophical. 
In vss. 19-21, a different idea from that of right- 
eousness is introduced, namely, that of dying 
to the law, which is equivalent to dying to Sin, 
and living to God. This is accomplished, on the 
one side, by being crucified with Christ, and on 
the other by being mystically united with Christ, 
and therefore a partaker of his life-giving power, 
which, as is shown later, gives to the believer 
superiority over his cosmic foes. Nowhere does 
the passage contain an allusion to the death of 
Christ as a sacrifice which serves to propitiate 
God. 

There is nothing in this passage which re- 
quires a modification of the interpretation which 
we have given to Rom. 3:21-26. On the con- 
trary, it serves to strengthen it, particularly with 
respect to the secondary, or homiletic character, 
which it assigns to the passage. This Galatian 
passage shows the same dialectic peculiarities 



COSMIC REDEMPTION III 

which we have noted in the case of other pas- 
sages. 179 Here, as in the other instances, Paul 
begins by using the terminology which the ques- 
tion at issue required, namely, righteousness 
through faith in Christ. Having reduced the 
contention of his opponents to an absurdity, he 
sets forth the facts of salvation in his own 
favorite terminology, that of power and life. 
Without pressing this point unduly, we believe 
that the dialectic principle, here referred to, is 
followed in Romans also, only on a broader scale. 
Aside from the thesis laid down in Rom. i :i6, 
which defines the gospel in terms of power, the 
first part of the discussion, that is, from Rom. 
1:17 through Chap. 7, is carried on largely in 
the terminology of Judaism, leading terms being 
righteousness, law, works, Abrahamic sonship, 
and the like. But with Chap. 8 Paul abandons this 
terminology and expresses himself in what we 
believe to have been his favorite nomenclature, 
power, life, freedom, glory, and in terms connot- 
ing superiority over the intermediary beings. 180 
Turning to the Corinthian passage (2 Cor. 

179 Pp. 72 f . 

180 See especially Rom. 8:2, 6, 10-14, 35-39- 



112 PAULS DOCTRINE OF REDEMPTION 

5 : 11-6:2), we find a strong utterance on the 
reconciling effect of Christ's death in the follow- 
ing: "And all things are of God, who reconciled 
us to himself through Christ and gave to us the 
ministry of reconciliation, to wit, that God was 
in Christ reconciling the world unto himself, not 
reckoning their trespasses against them, and giv- 
ing to us the word, or message, of reconcilia- 
tion." 181 

We have here another excellent example of 
that striking characteristic of Paul's thinking to 
which reference has just been made. Paul is 
viewing the central fact of the gospel, the re- 
demptive w r ork of Jesus, not from the standpoint 
of its philosophic explanation, but from the 
standpoint of his special dialectic need at this par- 
ticular time. His problem differs from what it 
was in Galatians, First Corinthians and Romans. 
In each of these letters, while the personal inter- 
est was more or less present, questions of a theo- 
logical character were thrust into the midst of 
the debate. In Second Corinthians, on the other 
hand, Paul is concerned with personal complaints 
which have been lodged against him, one of these 
181 2 Cor. 5:18, 19. 



COSMIC REDEMPTION II3 

being, as it seems, a suggestion that he is men- 
tally unbalanced. Paul sees the personal affec- 
tion and devotion of his spiritual children wan- 
ing, and he seeks to reinstate himself in their 
favor. He must win the estranged Corinthians. 
They must be reconciled to him. This gives him 
his key — reconciliation. Seizing upon this aspect 
of the death of Jesus, he uses it with consum- 
mate skill to his present purpose. He reminds 
his readers that he must in no sense be regarded 
as one acting in his personal capacity or for his 
personal benefit. He is an ambassador of God. 
His message is one of reconciliation. He says: 
"On behalf of Christ, therefore, we are am- 
bassadors, as though God were entreating at our 
hands : we beseech you, on behalf of Christ, be 
ye reconciled to God." 182 He all but identifies 
himself with Christ in his pleading with them to 
be reconciled to God. The dilemma in which this 
placed the Corinthians is evident. Their refusal 
to be reconciled to Paul, as God's ambassador, 
would amount substantially to a refusal to be 
reconciled to his principal, God. This would be 
equivalent to a rejection of Christ, whose re- 
182 2 Cor. 5:20. 



H4 paul's doctrine of redemption 

demptive work was the substance of the recon- 
ciling message, which God was sending by his 
ambassador, Paul. 183 

Like the Galatian passage, just considered, 
this one suggests no modification of the results 
arrived at in the study of Rom. 3 121-26. It fur- 
nishes additional evidence in support of our con- 
clusion that Paul did, at times, regard the death 
of Christ from a homiletic, or practical, stand- 
point. When so doing, he conceived of its hav- 
ing a reconciling effect on men, because it was 
an expression of God's love for them, in that he 
permitted his Son to die in their behalf. In this 
sense and to this extent the death of Jesus has 
an ethical significance. 

We have concluded our study of the means 1 , or 
method, by which God made possible the salva- 
tion of men. The method of effecting salvation 
corresponded with the nature of salvation. Sal- 
vation being cosmic, the method of its accom- 
plishment was cosmic. This method was devised 
in the beginning, and was wrought out in the 
unrevealed wisdom of God. It consisted in per- 
mitting his Son to be put to death by his cosmic 

183 Observe that "us" (2 Cor. 5:18), refers to Paul. 



COSMIC REDEMPTION 115 

foes, the demonic Powers, afterward to be res- 
cued from their control by the superior power of 
God in the bringing back of his Son from among 
the dead. This cosmic triumph had special refer- 
ence to Sin and Death, and was chiefly in behalf 
of men, for thereby the absolute dominion over 
men by these Powers was brought to an end. 
Man thus liberated was placed in position to ap- 
propriate the superior cosmic power of God for 
his salvation. There was also a secondary ef- 
fect attaching to the death of Jesus. As an un- 
paralleled and unreserved demonstration of 
God's love for men, it served to lead men to re- 
pentance and to the service of God and in con- 
sequence to salvation. 



CHAPTER IV 

THE COSMIC POWER OF THE REDEEMER MANIFEST 
IN THE LIFE OF BELIEVERS 

In this study it has been clearly made out, we 
believe, that, from Paul's point of view, man's 
salvation is eschatological, cosmic and dynamic. 
It is eschatological because it means, fundamen- 
tally, God's deliverance of men from the im- 
pending wrath, his transforming of them into his 
own likeness and nature, and his sharing with 
them his functions as ruler and judge of the 
universe. 184 All these experiences pertain to the 
future. It is cosmic and dynamic, because, in 
order for God to accomplish these results, it was 
necessary for him through the exercise of super- 
human power (8-6va/us) 9 to rescue men from 
the control of the Evil Powers of the cosmos. 
As long as men were under the control of these 
Powers, they would be the victims of the im- 
pending wrath, because primarily this wrath was 

184 1 Cor. 6:2, 3. 

116 



REDEEMED LIFE OF BELIEVERS 117 

directed against these Powers. Secondarily, it 
embraced all who were associated with them in 
opposition to God. Furthermore, as long as 
men were subject to these Powers, they would do 
their bidding, and could not of course attain unto 
the likeness and nature of God. 

This eschatological character of salvation, and 
particularly the shortness of the time to elapse 
before the Parousia of the Son of God, when 
salvation would be complete, had a pronounced 
effect upon the Apostle's view of the social or- 
der. He regarded it as unwise to make new 
social adjustments, believing it to be proper after 
conversion, to continue in, and to use, the same 
relationships in which one was before conversion. 
If one were a slave before conversion, he was 
not to take steps for his emancipation, even if 
freedom were a possibility for him. On the 
other hand, if he were a freeman when he be- 
came a believer he was not to sell himself into 
slavery. 185 The same principle obtained with ref- 
erence to marriage. If one were unmarried or had 
lost husband, or wife, it were best not to marry. 
However, if one were already married at the time 
185 1 Cor. 7:18-24. 



n8 paul's doctrine of redemption 

of becoming a believer, it were best to continue 
the marriage relation, especially in view of the 
fact that it gave the believing husband or wife an 
excellent opportunity to labor for the salvation 
of the unbelieving partner. 186 

But, it may be asked, did Paul transfer all the 
benefits of redemption to the future life? Did 
salvation mean little more for this life than a 
waiting for the coming transformation? By no 
means. The life of the believer here in this 
world was interpreted as a thorough-going mani- 
festation and product of that cosmic power of 
God by which the redemption of the world and 
of men was being wrought out. Since man's 
salvation is involved in the ultimate overthrow 
of Satan and his hosts, the life of the believer 
becomes a part of the cosmic conflict. God is 
still the protagonist on the side of the good. 
Just as, before the redemptive work of Jesus, 
men played a secondary part in the world's 
drama, so, after that work has been performed, 
as it was in the death and resurrection of Jesus, 

186 1 Cor. 7:1-17, 25-40. Paul regards his .directions in 
these matters as being reasonable in view of the shortness 
of the time preceding the Parousia (1 Cor. 7:29-31). 



REDEEMED LIFE OF BELIEVERS 1 19 

men are still the agents, or media, through whom 
the chieftains, God and Satan, operate. The be- 
lievers are ranged on the side of God. Paul is 
nothing and Apollos is nothing — simply ministers 
through whose instrumentality the Corinthians 
made the transfer of their allegiance from Satan 
to God, and that only as God ordained. Paul 
planted and Apollos watered, but God gave the 
increase. Believers are workers together with 
God, not simply for their individual salvation, 
but for the successful carrying out of God's en- 
tire program of world redemption, and their re- 
ward is determined by the manner in which their 
work stands the fiery test of the last day. 187 

It is true, not only that one takes his first 
steps in the Christian life through the power, or 
calling of God, 188 but also that, having entered 
upon it, he is guarded from evil, or the Evil One, 
by God. 189 The supplying of the Spirit to be- 
lievers is the work of God, as is the working of 
miracles by believers. 190 The bodies of believers 
are not their own to do with them as they please. 

187 1 Cor. 3:5-15. 

188 i Cor. 1:9; 7:17-24; Gal. 5:8; 1 Thes. 2:12; 4:7; 5:24. 

189 2 Thes. 3:3. 

190 Gal. 3:5. 



120 PAULS DOCTRINE OF REDEMPTION 

They belong to God. They are his property, 
having been purchased by him. They are the 
temples in which he dwells through the Spirit. 191 
Even in physical weakness, in persecutions, dis- 
tresses, and when plagued by some disease oper- 
ating as a messenger of Satan to beat him down, 
Paul could exult in the divine power, which made 
him strong, even superior to his foes. 192 

The thorough participation of the believer in 
the redemptive process of the cosmos is ex- 
pressed in many ways by Paul, chief among them 
being the following expressions : in Christ, the 
Holy Spirit, freedom from Sin, the Charismata 
of the Spirit, faith, love, hope. To understand 
Paul's conception of the Christian life one must 
penetrate the real significance of these expres- 
sions. 

Judged by its New Testament usage, the ex- 
pression, in Christ, is distinctively, though not 
exclusively, Pauline. 193 By it Paul brings out the 

191 1 Cor. 6 : 12-20. 

192 2 Cor. 12:7-10; 13:3-5; Phil. 4:11-13. 

193 According to Deissmann, it and its equivalents, such 
as in Jesus, in the Lord, in him, in whom (=Christ), and 
the like, occur 196 times in the New Testament, 164 times 
in the Pauline letters. It does not occur in the Synoptic 
Gospels, James, Second Peter, Jude, or Hebrews. It is 



REDEEMED LIFE OF BELIEVERS 121 

cosmic and dynamic union which subsists be- 
tween the believer and the Redeemer. Christ 
actually enters into, and is formed in the be- 
liever. 194 In consequence of this union, the be- 
liever, while in the body, lives a supernatural 
life. He no longer lives; Christ lives in him. 195 
The life of the natural man has ceased to exist 
for him. This life of the natural man has its 
dynamic source in a cosmic Power, or person- 
ality, namely, Sin. The life of the believer has 
its dynamic source in a cosmic Power, or person- 
ality also, namely, Christ, who is superior to 
Sin. This superiority of Christ over Sin was 
demonstrated in his death and resurrection. In 
his death on the cross he died to Sin once, and 
overcame Sin. In the cosmic, life-giving power, 
which caused him to live again, he lives in unison 
with God's world-purpose. 196 He is the dis- 
penser of God's power for the ends of redemp- 

found eight times in Acts and First Peter, twenty-four 
times in the Johannine writings, including Revelation. 
Die neutestamentliche Formel "in Christo Jesu," Marburg, 
1892, 1 ff. 

194 Gal. 4:19. 

195 Gal. 2:17-21. Whether or not Paul's ideal was real- 
ized by believers our study does not attempt to determine. 

196 Rom. 6:9-11. 



122 PAUL S DOCTRINE OF REDEMPTION 

tion. Likewise, the believer, in identifying him- 
self with Christ by faith, dies to the cosmic 
Power, Sin. 197 By virtue of the superior cosmic 
power, with which he makes connection in his 
union with the Redeemer, the believer lives a life 
of triumph over Sin. 

It follows, of course, that such a union with 
Christ as is expressed in the formula, in Christy 
was not in any sense incidental to the Christian 
life. It is not to be put down simply to the ac- 
count of Paul's mysticism. It is not supplemen- 
tary to his idea of righteousness, a Pauline idio- 
syncrasy, so to speak. It is absolutely fundamen- 
tal and necessary to his redemptive program. 
"We live," he writes to the Thessalonians, "if 
ye stand in the Lord." 198 The inference is 
plain. If the Thessalonians were not in the 
Lord, then they were lost, and Paul's labors in 
their behalf were fruitless. In this absolute 
necessity of being in Christ, we have a partial ex- 

197 In Gal. 2:19, Paul says he "died to law." In Rom. 
6:6, he says "Our old man was crucified (with Christ) 
in order that the body of Sin might be destroyed, that we 
might no longer be slaves to Sin." Dying to Law and 
dying to Sin are synonymous expressions. 

198 1 Thes. 3 : 8. 



REDEEMED LIFE OF BELIEVERS I23 

planation at least of Paul's impetuous and un- 
compromising method of handling a case of de- 
fection from Christ, as in Galatia, or of sin, as in 
Corinth. There could be no compromise, be- 
cause the difference between him and his op- 
ponents was not one of opinion simply. To take 
the course contemplated by them would inevit- 
ably result in severing that union between them- 
selves and Christ on which their salvation de- 
pended. This being Paul's point of view, we 
can understand why he should become vehement 
in his efforts to prevent his converts from taking 
this fatal step. 199 

199 It will perhaps already have been observed that we 
have given to the formula in Christ a significance differing 
from that which Deissmann adopted, as a result of his 
excellent study of the phrase. He considers that it char- 
acterizes the local relation which is established between 
the Christian and Christ, Christ being regarded as the 
element within which the Christian lives, and within which 
all the manifestations of the unique Christian life find 
expression. Deissmann believes it to be impossible to 
decide with certainty whether the local idea is real or 
simply rhetorical, but inclines to the first alternative. In 
either case, he regards the formula as the peculiarly 
Pauline expression for the most intimate communion 
thinkable of the Christian with the living Christ. Con- 
cerning the actual character of this communion with 
Christ, Deissmann holds, the formula furnishes us noth- 
ing conclusive {Die neutestamentliche Formel "in Christo 



124 PAUL S DOCTRINE OF REDEMPTION 

In the phrases, in the Spirit, in the Holy 
Spirit, etc., Paul expresses substantially the same 
idea as in the formula, in Christ. 200 He uses 
the term, Spirit, or Holy Spirit, in a variety of 
expressions such as walking in the Spirit, led by 
the Spirit, having the Spirit, being in the Spirit, 
the Spirit being in one, receiving the Spirit, liv- 
ing by the Spirit. In such expressions Paul uses 
the words Spirit and Christ without any apparent 
difference in meaning. In the Spirit the believer 
has the same cosmic, dynamic power for the 
overcoming of his foes, as he has in God, or in 

Jesu" Marburg, 1892, pp. 81, 82, 97, 98). We have given 
it a cosmic and dynamic significance. As such it is not 
primarily "local." Nor is the idea fundamentally that of 
communion. Furthermore, Christ is not regarded as "the 
element, within which the Christian lives, etc." He is re- 
garded as the divine Redeemer, the Son of God, the 
channel for the conveying to men of the cosmic redemp- 
tive power of God, upon which power man's salvation de- 
pends. It may not be possible to translate the phrase 
satisfactorily, but such a combination as, in the power of 
and in union and communion with Christ, seems to ap- 
proach its meaning very closely. Power, union and com- 
munion are here given in the order of their importance, 
the primary idea being power. 

200 For the parallel citations see Deissmann, Die neu- 
testamentliche Formel "in Christo Jesu" Marburg, 1892, 
85 ff. Cf. Gunkel, Die Wirkungen des heiligen Geistes, 
etc., Gottingen, 1888, a.a. O., 97 ff. 



REDEEMED LIFE OF BELIEVERS 125 

Christ. Through the power of the Spirit, just 
as through the power of Christ, the believer lives 
the ethical life, without which he cannot be 
saved. 201 

Enough has already been said to indicate that, 
from Paul's point of view, the life of the be- 
liever should be a sinless one. 202 We may go 
further and say that, for him, it was unthink- 
able that it should be otherwise. When he asks, 
"Shall we continue in Sin, that grace may 
abound?" He replies: "Far be it!" He then 
proceeds to show why it is impossible. His ar- 
gument runs as follows : In his death on the 
cross, Jesus died to Sin once and for all, and 
thereby conquered Sin. In his resurrection, he 
asserted once and for all his independence of and 
his superiority to Sin. Thenceforth he lives to 
God, which means that Sin has no longer any in- 
fluence over him. Now, we as believers have 

201 Gal. 5:16-26; Rom. 8:3-9. 

202 To this conclusion Wernle came, as a result of his 
special study of this question : - "That the Christian atti- 
tude demands no further contact with sin, that the Chris- 
tian is a sinless man, and as such appears shortly before 
God at the Judgment Day, is the result of this investiga- 
tion." Der Christ und die Sunde bei Paulus, Leipzig, 1897, 
126 f. 



126 PAUI/S DOCTRINE OF REDEMPTION 

re-enacted this drama in our own lives. We have 
been crucified with Christ. In that crucifixion of 
our former self we overcame Sin, as far as we 
are concerned, just as Jesus overcame Sin for 
the sake of all men. In consequence we are no 
longer to be enslaved to Sin. But just as Jesus 
was raised to a new life, so have we been also. 
We must reckon ourselves, therefore, to be dead 
to Sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Sin, 
therefore, is not to reign as a sovereign in our 
mortal bodies, forcing us to obey its behests. 
We are not to present our bodies to Sin, for 
service, but to God, as those who are alive from 
the dead and therefore superior to Sin inasmuch 
as Death and Sin are allied in their antagonism 
to men. 203 

This insistence upon the sinless life was not 
only a logical necessity in Paul's philosophy of 
salvation, but, as already indicated, it was an 
absolute pre-requisite to the inheritance of the 
future blessedness. Paul keeps this idea con- 
stantly before the minds of his readers. 204 The 

208 Rom. 6:1-14. Cf. also 1 Thes. 3:12; 4:1-6; 1 Cor. 
5:3-13; Col. 3:5-12; Eph. 4:17-24. 
204 Rom. 6:12-14, 22, 23; 7:5, 6; 8:1-17; 1 Cor. 5:3-5- 



REDEEMED LIFE OF BELIEVERS 127 

final destiny of the believer will be determined, 
not by the fact that he honored Christ, during 
his earthly life, by assenting to his messiahship 
and divine sonship, but by the life he has led. 
God cannot, for our special benefit, even if we 
have believed on his Son, alter the principles of 
the cosmic contest, which he is waging with his* 
cosmic foes. The sinful life is prima facie evi- 
dence of alliance with Sin, God's enemy. 205 In 
order to decide one's fate at the Judgment, it 
will only be necessary to establish the fact that 
he has lived a sinful life. Such a person cannot 
inherit the kingdom of God. 206 This is not un- 
fair on God's part, 207 since in the cosmic power 
which he has made available in Christ, or in the 
Holy Spirit, everyone has at command the means 
for living the sinless life, and thus being worthy 
of the inheritance which awaits the sons of God. 
If men fail to make use of this power, they can- 
not hold God responsible for their final destruc- 
tion. God has done his part in providing the 

205 Rom. 6:15-23. 
5 1 Cor. 6:9, 10; Gal. 5:19-21; Eph. 5:5. 



207 



Rom. 3:5. 



128 PAUI/S DOCTRINE OF REDEMPTION 

means of salvation. Each one must make use 
of them for himself. 208 

The gift of the Spirit was primarily, of course, 
for the believer's own salvation. But Paul 
recognizes a secondary effect of the Spirit's pres- 
ence and power in the life of the believer, in the 
Charismata, or gifts of the Spirit. These Charis- 
mata fall into two groups. There are gifts which 
have to do with the edification of the church and 
with the conversion of unbelievers, such as the 
word of wisdom, the word of knowledge, faith, 
prophecy, discerning of spirits, speaking with 
tongues, interpreting of tongues. Again, there 
are gifts which give evidence of the believers' 
superiority over the demonic Powers in that they 
are able to perform miracles, particularly in the 
healing of diseases. 209 

Looked at from the human side of the prob- 
lem, so to speak, the Christian life is marked by 
three outstanding characteristics— faith, love, 
hope. Paul was given to grouping these to- 

208 As salvation is determined finally on the basis of con- 
duct, in the earthly life, so the extent of one's rewards is 
determined by his success in turning men to righteous- 
ness. 

209 1 Cor. 12:1-13:2; 14:1-40. 



REDEEMED LIFE OF BELIEVERS 129 

gether. 210 Faith is the act wherein the believer 
transfers his allegiance from Satan to God. On 
its negative side, this transfer of allegiance is 
called repentance. On its positive side, it is called 
faith, or, verbally, to believe on, or in (Greek, 
into) Christ. Faith in Christ is an act of self- 
commitment to Christ for salvation, an enlist- 
ment with him in the cosmic struggle. In believ- 
ing on Christ one appropriates the divine power, 
which is at work for the redemption of the 
world. Because of this fact it constitutes the 
saving act pre-eminently. 211 Since man's salva- 
tion is inseparably connected with the redemp- 
tion of the cosmos, he must be indissolubly 
united with the power which is to effect this re- 
demption. This is the meaning of the question, 
"Who shall separate us from the love (equiva- 
lent here to power) of Christ? Shall tribulation, 

210 1 Thes. 1:3; 5:8; 1 Cor. 13:13; Col. 1 : 4, 5- Cf. 2 
Thes. 1 13. 

211 The criterion by which one is to know whether or 
not he is saved is the presence or absence of the Spirit 
(Gal. 3:2). It is through faith that the Spirit is received, 
and the evidence of the Spirit is detected by manifestations 
of cosmic power, as in the working of miracles (Gal. 3:5), 
or in the freedom of the life from the dominating influ- 
ence of Sin (Gal. 5:16-25). 



130 PAUL S DOCTRINE OF REDEMPTION 

or anguish, or persecution, or famine, or naked- 
ness, or peril, or sword ? . . . Nay, in all these 
things we are more than conquerors through 
him that loved us. For I am persuaded that 
neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principali- 
ties, nor things present, nor things to come, nor 
powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other 
creature, shall be able to separate us from the 
love (or power) of God, which is in Christ Jesus 
our Lord." 212 

Paul's favorite expression for the ethical life, 
on its positive side, is love. This quality, or 
virtue, embraces all that can be desired in con- 
duct. He who loves fulfills the requirements of 
the law, and meets all God's demands. 213 Paul 
cannot urge on his converts too strongly the in- 
junction to love; to find indisputable evidence of 
love in them gives him the greatest joy. 214 Love 
exhibits itself in self-denying regard for the 
needs, scruples and desires of others. 215 It is 
the norm of the life of those who are striving 
for salvation, because it corresponds with the na- 



212 Rom. 8:35-39. 

213 Rom. 13:8-10; Gal. 5:14. 



214 1 Thes. 4:9-12. 

215 1 Cor. 8 : 13 ; 10 : 24—11 : 1 ; 11 : 17—22, 33, 34. 



REDEEMED LIFE OF BELIEVERS I3I 

ture of Him to whom they have committed 
themselves for this salvation. In his great pro- 
vision for man's salvation God gave evidence of 
his unbounded love for man. 216 He revealed 
himself as a God of love. It follows that those 
who have made common cause with him and are 
identified with him in the carrying forward of 
the cosmic program must live in unison with his 
nature. To use another figure, believers are 
God's sons. He has sent forth his Spirit into 
their hearts assuring them of the fact. Being 
sons, they partake of the nature of the Father, 
which is love. To live the life of love is there- 
fore not only necessary but natural to the be- 
liever. Deeds of love spring by a law of the 
Spirit from the life of the believers as a normal 
product, as fruit. 217 Love is an expression of 
the cosmic power of the same Spirit which pro- 
duces the Charismata in believers; only love is 
far more to be desired than any of these striking 
demonstrations of the Spirit's power. 218 It is 
the living out of the will, purpose, and, we 

218 Rom. 5:6-11; Gal. 2:20; Eph. 5 : 1, 2. 

217 Gal. 5:16-26. 

318 1 Cor. I2:3ib-i3:i3. 



132 PAUL S DOCTRINE OF REDEMPTION 

might almost say, life of God in the life of be- 
lievers. This fact, coupled with the other, al- 
ready referred to, namely, that the life of love 
will certainly stand successfully the tests of the 
Judgment Day, may help to explain why Paul, 
despite the significance which he attaches to 
faith, declares love to be greater than faith. 219 
The importance which Paul attaches to hope is 
not, as might appear on first thought, exagger- 
ated. The explanation of this importance is 
found in the eschatological character of salva- 
tion. Only when this age is past and the com- 
ing age has set in will the saved enter upon 
the full realization of the blessings of salva- 
tion. The conditions of the present life are un- 
desirable. One is beset on every hand by ene- 
mies, visible and invisible. If salvation affords 
nothing better than what this life offers, it is not 
worth while. "If for this life only we have our 
hope in Christ, we are of all men most miser- 
able." 220 But hope holds out something more 
than the experiences of this life. It reaches for- 
ward beyond this life into the future, and makes 

219 1 Cor. 13:13. 

220 1 Cor. 15:19; cf. also vss. 31, 32. 



REDEEMED LIFE OF BELIEVERS 1 33 

the eschatological experiences so real and certain 
that it becomes possible for one to look with in- 
difference upon the sufferings of this present 
life, since they are not to be compared with the 
glory which shall be revealed in us hereafter. 221 

These three characteristics of the Christian 
life, namely, faith, hope and love, constitute in 
Paul's thinking a triangular foundation, on 
which, if a man rests, his salvation is assured. 
He can be said to be saved now, in this life, not 
because the present experience actually consti- 
tutes a completed salvation, but because it con- 
stitutes so thorough-going a certainty of it, that, 
by an accommodation of terms, the future reality 
may be put for the present promise and assurance 
of that reality. Through faith he is united with 
the world's Redeemer, and has at his command 
the unlimited redemptive power of God. 
Through a life of love he gives expression to 
this divine power and to the divine nature, which 
he shares. Being thus in his spiritual nature a 
son of God, he must inherit the blessings which 
God has prepared for his sons. Through the 
exercise of hope, by means of which he contem- 

221 Rom. 8: 18, 19; 2 Cor. 4: 17. 



134 PAULS DOCTRINE OF REDEMPTION 

plates the glorious transformation which is soon 
to come, he is enabled, rising superior to his 
present adversities, to remain faithful to the 
calling to an eschatological salvation, into which 
he has been called by God in Christ Jesus. 



CHAPTER V 

THE REDEEMER AND THE CONSUMMATION OF THE 
REDEMPTIVE PROGRAM 

As we have seen, Paul's interest was primarily 
in that part of the redemptive program which 
had to do with man's salvation. The questions 
which bulk large in his letters are such as have to 
do with the thraldom from which man is saved 
by the power of God, the future blessedness 
which is assured him in salvation, the means by 
which salvation is made a possibility, and the 
life which the saved lived here on earth while 
awaiting their complete redemption, namely, the 
apocalypse of the sons of God. On the more 
philosophical questions touching the redemption 
of the cosmos itself Paul has less to say. He 
tells us comparatively little regarding the nature 
of the Godhead or the relation of God the 
Father, God the Son and God the Spirit to the 
universe of matter. He does little more than 
name the ranks of the intermediary beings, with 

135 



136 paul/s doctrine of redemption 

which the underworld and the super-terrestrial 
regions are inhabited. Little is disclosed of their 
nature and functions. What the future of the 
whole is to be is sketched only in the boldest 
outlines. Yet his utterances on some of these 
points are sufficiently suggestive and explicit to 
enable us to follow, with some feeling of cer- 
tainty, the main currents of his thought. 

His favorite designations for the Redeemer 
are Jesus, Jesus Christ, Lord, Son of God. There 
is a striking correspondence between some of the 
attributes and functions which Paul ascribes to 
Jesus and those which are ascribed to the Son 
of Man in Jewish apocalyptical literature. At 
the same time, Paul does not use the term Son 
of Man at all. This fact has been adduced by 
some writers in support of the theory that the 
term Son of Man was not a current messianic 
title in the time of Paul or of Jesus, and that it 
was introduced into the Gospels a considerable 
time after Paul, as a result of its use in Chris- 
tian apocalypses. The main line of argument in 
support of this theory is linguistic, and is based 
on the contention that the Aramaic equivalent of 



CONSUMMATION OF REDEMPTIVE PROGRAM 1 37 

the term Son of Man, viz., bar nash or bar 
nasha, had no titular significance, and that it 
meant simply "man" or "the man." This much 
discussed question is too large to be entered 
upon here. It is sufficient to point out that those 
who deny the possibility of a titular character 
attaching to the term encounter serious difficul- 
ties, and their arguments have not thus far been 
generally convincing. We would point out in 
particular that perhaps too much weight has been 
attached to the fact that Paul does not use the 
term. In explanation of this several reasons sug- 
gest themselves. First, while Paul ascribes to 
Jesus nearly every important characteristic which 
apocalypticism gave to the Son of Man, these all 
taken together do not make up the Christ of Paul. 
To Paul Christ is virtually all that the Son of 
Man is, and much more, for in addition to hav- 
ing the apocalyptical functions, which were 
ascribed to the Son of Man, Christ had died and 
risen from the dead in order to redeem men. 
As these facts were all-important for Paul's 
theology, to have designated him the Son of 
Man would have been to contract and circum- 
scribe the Christ of his faith. Furthermore, the 



I38 PAUL'S DOCTRINE OF REDEMPTION 

term Son of Man was more or less indefinite as 
far as the identity of the person so designated 
was concerned. 222 Regarding the identity of 
Jesus there seems to have been no question, in 
the time of Paul. Again, it is easily conceivable 
that the term Son of Man was not well adapted 
to Paul's Gentile mission. It contained a sug- 
gestion which was at variance with his high 
Christology. For him Christ was not primarily 
the Son of Man, that is, of humanity, but the 
Son of God. To be sure, he had been born of a 
woman, and was clothed with human flesh, but 
his life in the flesh, as we shall see presently, 
was only a brief moment in his eternal, cosmic 
existence. It is not surprising, therefore, that 
Paul, while placing Jesus in the framework of 
Jewish apocalypticism, uses a Christological ter- 
minology which is more definite and clear than 
the term Son of Man and which expresses more 
truly Paul's enlarged conception of Jesus. The 
term Son of God, we are warranted in believing, 

222 For example, "The multitude therefore answered him, 
We have heard from the law that the Christ abides for- 
ever, and how sayest thou that the Son of Man must be 
lifted up? Who is this Son of Man?" Jn. 12:34. 



CONSUMMATION OF REDEMPTIVE PROGRAM I39 

was the term which most fully reproduced his 
thought. His other favorite terms, Jesus, Jesus 
Christ, Lord, all carried with them the same 
connotation as did the term Son of God. 

The Redeemer of men was, to Paul's thinking, 
a cosmic figure, having the nature, attributes and 
functions of God. He had pre-existed with God 
before the worlds were made, and had had a 
share in their making. 223 To him was commit- 
ted the task of overthrowing the Evil Powers of 
the universe and thereby redeeming it, or restor- 
ing it to God the Father. This redemptive work 
was inaugurated in the sending by the Father of 
the Son to earth to make possible man's salva- 
tion. This took place in an epochal hour of 
cosmic history, that is, when the fullness of the 
time came. 224 

That Paul attributed to Jesus an earthly exist- 
ence is fully made out, for he witnesses both to 
his birth 225 and to his historical death. 226 He 
knows also of his betrayal and of his participa- 

223 Phil. 2:5-8; Col. 1:15-17. 

224 Gal. 4:4; Eph. 1 : 9, 10. 

225 Rom. 1:3; 9:5; Gal. 4:4 

226 1 Thes. 2:15; Gal. 5 :n ; 6:12, 14; Phil. 2:8. Cf. Case, 
The Historicity of Jesus, Chicago, 1912, Chap. VI. 



I40 PAUl/S DOCTRINE OF REDEMPTION 

tion in the Last Supper. 227 Yet how meager are 
these references to the matchless life of Jesus. 
One could hardly excuse an indifferent historian 
for passing over such a career without more ex- 
tended notice, how much less an enthusiastic de- 
votee like Paul. Furthermore, it is evident that 
the things he does mention are not given for any 
human or historical interest. They all belong to 
theology, and constitute momenta in the world's 
redemptive program. This inference is clear 
enough, but it is further supported by Paul's ex- 
plicit statement that he ceased to know Christ 
after the flesh. 228 This means that the earthly, 
historical Jesus had no vital significance for him. 
But why should the birth and death of Jesus 
have greater theological significance for Paul 
than his life and teaching did? For the modern 
mind, uninfluenced by Paul, it is not so. The 
reverse is more apt to be the case, particularly 
if only that feature of the birth, w T hich Paul 
brings out, is dwelt on. For it must be borne in 
mind that Paul does not witness to the virgin 
birth of Jesus. What he emphasizes is that 

227 1 Cor. 11:23-26. " 8 2 Cor. 5:16. 



CONSUMMATION OF REDEMPTIVE PROGRAM I4I 

Christ was born under the law, born of a wo- 
man 229 and that he was in the likeness of sinful 
flesh. 230 Just why these particular facts should 
be of supreme religious significance it is difficult 
for the modern mind to conceive. The explana- 
tion lies in the fact that we touch here a very 
peculiar feature of Paul's theology, one probably 
that will become clearer to us as we learn more 
of the religious thought of his day, particularly 
in the realm of the mystery-religions. He dis- 
cerned a pronounced correspondence, or parallel- 
ism, between the ends sought in redemption and 
the means necessary to attain those ends. Christ 
was to redeem man from Sin and Death. It 
was necessary that he should become, in some 
sense, sin, although he knew no sin. 231 By being 
made in the likeness of sinful flesh he condemned 
Sin in the flesh. 232 By becoming subject to 

229 Gal. 4:4. 

230 Rom. 8:3. In Rom. 1:3 he is declared to be "of the 
seed of David according to the flesh/' but no significance 
is assigned to this fact by Paul. Likewise the author of 
2 Tim. 2 :8 writes : "Remember Jesus Christ risen from 
the dead, of the seed of David, according to my gospel." 
But again no use is made of the fact of Jesus' descent 
from David. 

231 2 Cor. 5:21. 
232 Rom. 8:3. 



142 PAUL S DOCTRINE OF REDEMPTION 

Death he redeemed men from Death, a thing 
which the agents of Death did not forecast, for, 
had they done so, they would not have crucified 
the Lord of Glory. 233 He was to save men 
from Law, another cosmic Power. He, in con- 
sequence, was born under Law, and somehow, 
mysterious no doubt to us, he redeemed us from 
Law, its slavery and curse. 234 

The conclusion seems unavoidable that Paul 
viewed the earthly life of Jesus not as different 
from but as a part of his age-long cosmic exist- 
ence. It had for him no historical meaning ex- 
cept from the standpoint of cosmic history. 235 
But if it was insignificant for earthly history, it 
was all-important for the history of the cosmos. 
For in his death and resurrection Jesus admin- 



233 1 Cor. 2:7,8. 
234 Gal. 4: 4, 5. 

235 ' 



5 It is possible that the paucity of Paul's references to 
the earthly Jesus may be in a measure attributable to his 
unwillingness to concede to his Judaizing opponents any 
advantage which they might get out of such references. 
It was one of their principal contentions that their gospel 
represented the thought of the original Apostles, who had 
seen and associated with Jesus. They discredited Paul and 
his gospel because he had not seen Jesus. Paul felt com- 
pelled to meet that argument, and did so by claiming to 
have seen the risen Jesus. Whether the turn Paul took 
here was dialectically justifiable or not we need not con- 



CONSUMMATION OF REDEMPTIVE PROGRAM I43 

istered to Satan and his hosts an initial and par- 
tial defeat, which was to be followed up until 
the victory was made complete. 

While man has his part to play, as we have 
shown already, and while, through the Spirit, 
God also takes part in the earthly conflict, ren- 
dering indispensable aid to those who commit 
themselves to him, 23 ' 6 the cosmic struggle, in its 
larger proportions, is really carried on in the 
super-terrestrial regions. Thither Christ has 
gone by means of his ascension. Exalted to 
the right hand of God on high, he is given a 
place superior to all the intermediary beings of 
the universe. 237 There he is to reign until the 
work of redemption is complete, that is, until all 
the cosmic enemies of God have been vanquished. 
For he must reign until he puts all his enemies 
beneath his feet, all those hosts of intermediary 

sider. The situation is what we are interested in. It may 
explain in part Paul's failure to ascribe to the earthly life 
of Jesus that religious value which the modern man finds 
in it. But if it constitutes an explanation at all it must be 
only a partial explanation. The fuller explanation must be 
found in Paul's fundamental conception of the redemptive 
work of Christ. 

236 Rom. 8 126, 27. 

237 Eph. 1:20, 21; 4:15; Phil. 2:5-11; Col. 1:17-19. 



144 PAUL S DOCTRINE OF REDEMPTION 

beings, such as Rule, Authority and Power. The 
last of these to be completely overthrown is 
Death. Then comes the end, that is, the end of 
Christ's redemptive work, the end of his reign. 
The redemption of the universe complete, all 
God's enemies destroyed, Christ the Son turns 
over to the Father the redeemed universe, the 
Son himself to take a place subordinate to the 
Father, in order that God the Father may be all 
in all. 238 

Just what the future condition of the earth, 
considered apart from the rest of the cosmos, is 
to be is not altogether clear. The passage just 
cited from Corinthians seems to throw no light 
on the question. A corresponding passage in 
Romans seems to point in the direction of a re- 
habilitated earth, wherein the adverse Powers 
of Evil will not exert their baleful influence. 
Although this conclusion does not rest on specific 
statements, it is strongly supported by the con- 
sciousness which Paul seems to have of the fact, 
detecting it apparently by experience, that the 
whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain 
until now, awaiting its deliverance which will 
238 1 Cor. 15:20-28. 



CONSUMMATION OF REDEMPTIVE PROGRAM I45 

come simultaneously with the transformation of 
the sons of God. 239 

This transformation of the sons of God was 
the logical outcome of the divine life which the 
believer entered upon here. The cosmic victory 
over his foes which was won for him by the 
Redeemer in his death and resurrection was suffi- 
cient for the needs of this life, since it enabled 
the believer to live superior to Sin and thus in- 
sured him ultimate victory over Death, eternal 
death being the wages of Sin. Once emancipated 
from Sin by the power of the Redeemer, and 
subsequently remaining free from Sin through 
his own moral earnestness, which was made ef- 
fective through the use of the divine power me- 
diated through the Spirit, the believer lived in 
confident expectation of a complete and final 
triumph over Death, or in other words of a 
glorious immortality. The experience of salva- 
tion which this earthly life afforded him, while 
it was actual and truly real, was nevertheless only 
partial, provisional and proleptical. Paul reck- 
oned that the sufferings of this present time 
were not worthy to be compared with the glory 
239 Rom. 8:19-22. 



146 paul/s doctrine of redemption 

which shall be revealed in us. 240 He considered 
that the light afflictions, which characterize the 
earthly life, work out for us a far more exceed- 
ing and eternal weight of glory, while we look 
not at the things which are seen but at the eter- 
nal things which are not seen. 241 Even the word 
righteousness (SuauQvvrq) Paul associates closely 
with these experiences of the future life : "That 
I may gain Christ and be found in him, not 
having a righteousness which is of my own 
achieving through keeping the law, but the 
righteousness which is by faith in Christ, the 
righteousness which comes from God as its 
source upon the basis of faith, in order that I 
may know him and the power of his resurrec- 
tion and the fellowship of his sufferings, being 
conformed to his death, if by any means I may 
attain unto the resurrection from the dead/' 242 
Despite the fact that the life in Christ here on 
earth was so realistic to Paul that he could de- 
clare that he no longer lived, but that Christ lived 
in him and that the life which he lived he lived 
in the power of Christ, he nevertheless affirmed 

240 Rom. 8 : 18. 241 2 Cor. 4:17, 18. 

242 Phil. 3:8b-n. 



CONSUMMATION OF REDEMPTIVE PROGRAM 1 47 

most emphatically that this was by no means all 
of salvation, as the following statement shows : 
"Not that I have already attained, or am al- 
ready made perfect, but I press on, if so be that 
I may lay hold on that for which I was laid 
hold on by Christ Jesus. Brethren, I count not 
myself yet to have laid hold : but one thing, for- 
getting the things which are behind and stretch- 
ing forward to the things which are before, I 
press on toward the goal unto the prize of the 
calling of God in Christ Jesus which is on 
high." 243 

The earthly life of the believer was passed in 
hourly expectancy of those future events which 
would signalize the completion of Redemption. 
Each day brought salvation nearer. "And more- 
over, knowing the time (the cosmic moment 
when "the present age" ceases and "the coming 
age" begins) that it is already the hour for you 
to awake from sleep; for now is our salvation 
nearer than when we believed. The night ("the 
present age" of darkness) 244 is far spent; the 
day ("the coming age" of light) is at hand. 

243 Phil. 3:12-14. 

**i Thes. 5:4, 5; 1 Cor. 4:5; Col. 1:13; Eph. 5:8. 



I48 PAUl/s DOCTRINE OF REDEMPTION 

Let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, 
and let us put on the weapons of light. 245 Let 
us conduct ourselves becomingly, as in the day, 
not in rioting and drunkenness, not in unchastity 
and wantonness, not in strife and envying. But 
put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no 
provision for the flesh, to fulfill its desires." 246 

Man's salvation in its full realization was in- 
extricably bound up with those cosmic happen- 
ings which were to mark the consummation of 
the world's redemption. Man's salvation could 
not become complete until those events took 
place. Chief among these were the Parousia, the 
Resurrection, and the Judgment with its deter- 
mining of the destinies of the good and the 
evil. 

For the idea of the Redeemer's coming to 
earth Paul used a variety of expressions. 247 The 

245 Note the military term. The figure seems to be that 
of a sleeping soldier, who on awaking at the dawn of day, 
quickly lays aside his night garments and puts on his 
armor in readiness for service. For the believer this 
military equipment would appear to be the Lord Jesus 
Christ (Rom. 13:14). 

246 Rom. 13:11-14. 

247 Our expression Second Coming or Second Advent is 
strictly speaking not warranted by Paul's usage, possibly 



CONSUMMATION OF REDEMPTIVE PROGRAM I49 

chief of these are: the Parousia, 248 the Day, or 
the Day of the Lord, of Christ, etc., 249 the 
Apocalypse of our Lord Jesus Christ 250 and the 
Apocalypse of our Lord from heaven. 251 In the 
Pastorals and once in 2 Thessalonians the word 
appearing («r«£av«a) i s found. 252 The outstand- 
ing features of the Parousia are : that Christ will 
descend on the clouds from heaven with a shout, 
with the voice of the archangel and with the 
trump of God. 253 He will be accompanied by 
the angels of his power in flaming fire. 254 

The significance of the Parousia is that it con- 
stitutes the supreme manifestation of God's 
power over his cosmic enemies, in particular, the 
most formidable of them all — Death. In a mo- 
ment, in the twinkling of an eye at the last 
trump, the dead in Christ, those who sleep in 

not by the remainder of the New Testament. Cf. W. B. 
Smith, Der vorchristliche Jesus, Giessen, 1906. 

248 1 Cor. 15:23; 1 Thes. 2:19; 3:13; 4:15; 5:23; 2 Thes. 
2 : 1, 9. 

249 1 Cor. 1:8; 5:5; 2 Cor. 1:14; Phil. 1:6, 10; 2:16; 1 
Thes. 5:2, 4; 2 Thes. 1:10; 2:2. 

250 1 Cor. 1:7. 

261 2 Thes. 1:7. 

252 2 Thes. 2:8; 1 Tim. 6:14; 2 Tim. 1:10; 4:1; Tit. 2:13. 

253 1 Thes. 4:16. 

254 2 Thes. 1:7, 8. Cf. Isa. 66:15. 



150 paul's doctrine of redemption 

him, shall rise incorruptible, which is equivalent 
to saying that thenceforth they are freed from 
Death, and out of reach of his destructive 
power. 255 

Paul's view of salvation as a rescue from the 
Evil Powers and as an impartation to the be- 
liever of the superior power of God for the 
overcoming of these evil forces would logically 
require that only the believers in Jesus, that is, 
those who have appropriated this power will 
rise, or come back from the abode of the dead. 
One cannot be certain as to what Paul thought 
on this point. In so far as he has expressed him- 
self he seems to be consistent with the logic of 
his system. He does not represent the wicked 
as rising at the coming of the Lord. He dis- 
tinctly says that it is "those who are asleep 
through Jesus" whom God will bring with Jesus. 

255 1 Cor. 15:52. In 1 Thes. 4:14 the language is: "If 
we believe that Jesus died and rose again, so shall God 
lead (ccjet) with him (Jesus) those who sleep through (5ta) 
Jesus." The meaning seems to be that God will, by the 
aid of Jesus, or in company with Jesus, lead back from 
the abode of the dead and consequently from the power of 
Death those who have been asleep through Jesus, and 
therefore still within his power, and presumably beyond 
the complete power of Death. 



CONSUMMATION OF REDEMPTIVE PROGRAM 151 

God will make alive the mortal bodies of men, 
provided the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from 
the dead dwells in them, for it is through the 
power of this Spirit that their bodies are made 
thus alive. 256 If in i Cor. 15:52 Paul does not 
explicitly indicate that the dead who shall rise 
at Christ's coming are believers, he does so im- 
plicitly. The passage shows that he has in mind 
only those who are united with Christ. He 
divides them into two classes, those who have 
died and those who are still alive at Jesus' com- 
ing. Where Paul says that the dead shall rise 
incorruptible, he can only mean the dead in 
Christ. 

Those who are alive at the Parousia triumph 
over Death, just as those do who are brought 
back from Death's abode by the power of God. 
They shall be transformed. "This corruptible 
(the part of us now subject to Death's power) 
must put on incorruption, and this mortal 
(equivalent to corruptible) must put on immor- 
tality. But when this corruptible shall have put 
on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put 
on immortality, then shall come to pass the say- 

256 Rom. 8:11. 



152 paul/s doctrine of redemption 

ing that is written, Death is swallowed up in vic- 
tory." 257 

How this is accomplished Paul does not in- 
dicate further than to say that it is the work of 
God through our Lord Jesus Christ. The exul- 
tant language in which this thought is expressed 
goes to show that in this particular achievement 
of the Redeemer Paul saw the crowning act in 
man's salvation. "O Death, where is thy vic- 
tory? O Death, where is thy sting? The sting 
of Death is Sin and the power of Sin is the Law, 
but thanks be to God who giveth us the victory 
(over all three of these cosmic foes of man) 
through our Lord Jesus Christ." 258 This trans- 
formation of those who are alive at the Parousia 
Paul designates as a mystery ( pvonqpLov^ . If 
there was a body of esoteric teaching in Paul's 
gospel, the probability is that the doctrine of the 
resurrection and the metamorphosis of believers 
at the Parousia constituted an important part of 
it. But this is only to say in another way that 
Paul's gospel, or doctrine of salvation, had for 
its central idea the overcoming of Death by 

257 1 Cor. 15:51-54. 

258 1 Cor. 15:55-57. Cf. Isa. 25:8; Hos. 13:14. 



CONSUMMATION OF REDEMPTIVE PROGRAM 1 53 

man through the power of the Redeemer Jesus 
Christ at his Parousia. Through this power 
man secured a blessed immortality. In brief 
that is Paul's gospel. That is what he means 
by salvation. 

It follows of necessity that those who are 
alive at the Parousia but are not in Christ are 
destroyed. "When they are saying, Peace and 
safety, then sudden destruction cometh upon 
them . . . and they shall by no means es- 
cape." 259 The exact nature of this destruction 
it is not easy to determine. It is referred to 
as death. 260 If this expression is interpreted ab- 
solutely, it may be given the meaning of anni- 
hilation. But more probably it is to be inter- 
preted relatively, and by contrast with the term 
"eternal life," which occurs along with it. Eter- 
nal life refers, not simply to eternal existence, 
but to the joys and blessings which characterize 
eternal life. So death may refer, not to absolute 
destruction, but to a condition of relative unhap- 
piness and misery. Paul probably gave expres- 

259 1 Thes. 5 .3. Cf . Rom. 2:9; 6:23; 1 Cor. 3:17; 5 : 5 \ 
6:9; 15:50; Phil. 1:28; 3: 19. 
260 Rom. 6:21, 23. 



154 PAUL S DOCTRINE OF REDEMPTION 

sion to this idea when he declared that the 
wicked shall not inherit the Kingdom of God. 261 
What is meant by this may be seen in part from 
the passage: "Or despiseth thou the riches of 
his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering, 
not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth 
thee to repentance? But after thy hardness and 
impenitent heart treasurest up for thyself wrath 
in a day of wrath and revelation of the right- 
eous judgment of God; who will render to every 
man according to his works : to them that by 
patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor 
and incorruption, eternal life : but unto them that 
are factious, and obey not the truth, but obey 
unrighteousness, shall be wrath and indignation, 
tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man 
that worketh evil, of the Jew first and also of 
the Greek; but glory and honor and peace to 
every man that worketh good, to the Jew first 
and also to the Greek; for there is no respect of 
persons with God." 262 

The terms, wrath, indignation, tribulation and 
anguish are put over against such terms as 
glory, honor, incorruption and eternal life, and 
261 1 Cor. 6 : 9, io ; 15 150. 262 Rom. 2 14-11. 



CONSUMMATION OF REDEMPTIVE PROGRAM 1 55 

therefore express the misery of those who fail 
to inherit the blessings of the saved. Beyond 
this Paul does not seem to go. Even in his most 
descriptive utterance on the subject he seems to 
limit himself to terms indicative of failure to 
attain to the joys of the blessed: "And to you 
that are afflicted rest with us, at the revelation 
of the Lord Jesus from heaven with the angels 
of his power in flaming fire, rendering vengeance 
to them that know not God, and to them that 
obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus : who 
shall suffer punishment, even eternal destruction 
from the face of the Lord and from the glory 
of his might, when he shall come to be glorified 
in his saints and to be marveled at in all them 
that believed ... in that day." 263 

It appears that Paul in his references to the 
future state of the wicked confines himself to the 
use of general terms, which are for the most 
part negative in character. There is no refer- 
ence to Gehenna, or to a lake of fire, as is the 
case in the Synoptic Gospels. This fact does not 
prove, however, that Paul did not believe in the 
existence of these things. At the same time it 

263 2 Thes. 17-10. 



I56 PAUl/s DOCTRINE OF REDEMPTION 

does prevent us from affirming with certainty 
that he did. 

It is likewise with regard to the Judgment. 
Paul is strikingly indefinite touching the details 
of it, as compared with the Synoptic Gospels. 
He gives no descriptive scene of that event. 
Whether or not he thought of it in the way in 
which it is pictured in the Gospel narratives it is 
impossible to say. There can be no question as 
to his firm belief in the fact of the Judgment. 
He repeatedly speaks of it, sometimes represent- 
ing God as Judge, 264 at other times Christ. 265 In 
one case he seems to pass imperceptibly from the 
one to the other. 266 In this particular passage 
moreover it is evident that the Judgment takes 
place at the time of the Parousia, and it is an 
important part of that event. Just as we have 
seen that Christ at his coming will bring from 
the abode of the dead those who are asleep in 
Jesus and transform those of his faithful ones 
who are alive at his coming, so at his coming 
he will destroy those who are not his. Looked 

264 Rom. 2:2-6; 3:5, 6, 19, 20; 14:10. 
285 Rom. 2:16; 1 Cor. 4:5; 2 Cor. 5:10. 
268 2 Thes. 1:5-10. 



CONSUMMATION OF REDEMPTIVE PROGRAM 1 57 

at in the light of their cosmic significance, the 
two acts are really one. They both constitute 
the Redeemer's triumph over his cosmic enemies. 
The believers he rescues from the abode and 
power of Death. The sinners are destroyed. 
God gave these sinners the opportunity to pre- 
pare for the day of wrath, but they refused to 
take advantage of the salvation provided in the 
gospel. They in consequence failed to provide 
for themselves escape from the wrath of God, 
since they did not become his sons, receive his 
Spirit and partake of his nature. 

If one desires to penetrate more deeply Paul's 
thought touching the Parousia, the Resurrection, 
the Judgment and the destinies of the saved and 
the unsaved, he must study these questions in the 
light of the contemporary religious thought of 
Paul. Jewish apocalyptic presents many paral- 
lels. 267 The large part which was played by 
eschatology in the mystery-religions of the 
Grseco-Roman empire in this period, as well as 
in other forms of religious expression, makes it 
probable that Paul's thought on these problems 

^Bousset, Die Religion des Judentums, 2 Aufl., Berlin, 
1906, 294 ff., 308 ff., 474 ff. 



158 paul/s doctrine of redemption 

of the future would find expression in forms 
which were intelligible and agreeable to his audi- 
tors. That this was the case we have indirect 
evidence in the fact that these problems of the 
future seem not to have been the basis of con- 
troversy. Some members of the Corinthian 
church, how many we do not know, had doubts 
regarding the resurrection. Paul's reply to their 
questionings indicates that these skeptics were 
not a menace to the church, as though they were 
propagandists, having the denial of the resurrec- 
tion as one of their chief tenets. The Thessa- 
lonians had questionings regarding those who 
had fallen asleep, and also perhaps regarding the 
time when the Parousia would take place. But 
this only goes to show how fully they accepted 
the doctrine of the Parousia, and presumably all 
that went with it in Paul's preaching. For it 
was to these Thessalonians that Paul wrote re- 
minding them how they had turned from idols to 
serve a God living and true and to wait for his 
Son from the heavens. 268 

The probability is that the absence of detailed 
statements regarding such important facts as 
268 1 Thes. 1:10. 



CONSUMMATION OF REDEMPTIVE PROGRAM 1 59 

the Parousia, the Resurrection, the Judgment and 
the future state of the good and the evil finds its 
explanation to a great extent in the fact that 
these ideas encountered little opposition from 
those to whom Paul preached. In many quar- 
ters, both among Jews and Pagans, men were 
endeavoring to flee from the wrath to come. To 
a considerable degree that was the unifying re- 
ligious thought of the time, If we are right in 
giving to Paul's idea of salvation a dynamic and 
cosmic significance, then we may say with con- 
siderable probability that Paul found a ready re- 
sponse to his eschatology among the common 
people of the Grseco-Roman empire, both Jews 
and Pagans, for demonology was common 
among both classes. 

Regarding the destiny of the believers we have 
already spoken in Chap. II. 269 It remains only 
to observe that in contemplating the glorious 
future which awaits the faithful, Paul expresses 
himself with moderation and reserve. One has 
only to compare the Pauline epistles with the 
Book of Revelation, or with the extra-canonical 
apocalyptical writings to be impressed with this 

269 Pp. 33-48. 



160 paul/s doctrine of redemption 

fact. The apocalypses make much of the external 
features of the blessed state, what might be 
called its materialistic aspect. They give elab- 
orate descriptions of the city beautiful, with its 
street of gold, gates of pearl, etc. They portray 
the appearance of the redeemed, whom the writ- 
ers have seen in vision, showing how, when 
transformed, they may be mistaken for superior 
beings. The angelic choir, the great white 
throne, the elders, the beasts, the book of judg- 
ment, the Lamb slain from the foundation of 
the world — all these are set forth before the 
reader in graphic detail. Paul on the contrary 
makes no use of such materialistic representation. 
He appears to be concerned not with the en- 
vironment of the redeemed but with their actual 
condition or state. He sums up this in two 
general expressions — glory and conformation to 
the likeness of Christ. This conformation to the 
likeness of Christ in particular means assimila- 
tion to the nature of God, who becomes all in 
all. This stands for the completion of the cosmic 
cycle. Men, or certain of them, were ordained 
from the first by God to attain to this cosmic one- 
ness with God. This marks the completion of 



CONSUMMATION OF REDEMPTIVE PROGRAM l6l 

the cosmic cycle. The cosmic conflict comes to 
an end. God's enemies are all subdued. Har- 
mony and peace pervade the universe. The 
dualism gives place to a divine oneness, which is 
God. 



SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Baur, F. C. Das manichdische Religionssystem, 
Tubingen, 1831. 

Gfrorer, A. F. Das Jahrhundert des Heils, Stutt- 
gart, 1838. 

Hilgenfeld, A. Der Galaterbrief, Leipzig, 1852. 
Lipsius, R. A. Die paulinische Rechtfertigungs- 
lehre, 1853. 

Zeitschrift f. wiss. Theologie, 1858, i860, 1866. 

Morison, James. A Critical Exposition of the 
Third Chapter of Paul's Epistle to the Romans, 
London, 1866. 

Weiss, B. Lehrbuch der bibl. Theologie des N. T. y 
Berlin, 1868. 7 AufL, 1903. Eng. trans, 1888^ 

Lightfoot, J. B. St. Paul's Epistle to the Gala- 
Hans, London and Cambridge, 1869. 

Schurer, Emil. Lehrbuch der neutestament- 
lichen Zeitgeschichte, Leipzig, 1874. 2 AufL, 
Geschichte des judischen Volkes im Zeitalter 
Jesu Christi, Bd. I, 1890; II, 1886; 3 und 4 
AufL, Bd. I, 1901; 4 AufL, Bd. II, 1907; III, 
1909. 

Holsten, C. Das Evangelium des Paulus, Berlin, 
1880. 

163 



164 SELECTKD BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Weber, F. System der altsynagogalen Theologie, 

Leipzig, 1880. 2 Aufl., Judische Theologie, 

1897. 
Klopper, Albert. Der Brief an die Colosser, Ber- 
lin, 1882. 
Spitta, Friedrich. Der zweite Brief des Petrus 

und der Brief des Judas, Halle, 1885. 
Everling, Otto. Die paulinische Angeiologie und 

Ddmonologie, Gottingen, 1888. 
Gunkel, Hermann. Die Wirkungen des heiligen 

Geistes, u. s. w., Gottingen, 1888. 
Holtzmann, H. J. Hand-Commentar zum Neuen 

Testament, Freiburg, 1889. 2 Aufl., 1891, 1892. 
Deissmann, Adolph. Die neutestamentliche For- 

mei "in Christ Jesu," Marburg, 1892. 
Charles, R. H. The Book of Enoch, Oxford, 

1893. 2d Edition, 1912. 
Kabisch, Rich. Die Eschatologie des Paulus, Got- 
tingen, 1893. 
Sanday and Headlam. A Critical and Exegetical 

Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, 

New York, 1895. 
Holtzmann, H. J. Lehrbuch der neutestament- 

lichen Theologie, Freiburg und Leipzig, 1897. 

2 Aufl., hrsg. von A. Jiilicher und W. Bauer, 

Tubingen, 191 1. 
Wernle, Paul. Der Christ und die Sunde bei 

Paulus, Leipzig, 1897. 



SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY 165 

Sieffert, Friedr., Meyer Kritisch-exegetischer 
Kommentar uber d. N. T. Der Brief an die 
Galater. 9 Aufl., Gottingen, 1899. 

Weiss, B., Meyer Kritisch-exegetischer Kommen- 
tar iiber d. N. T. Der Brief an die Romer. 
9 Aufl., Gottingen, 1899. 

Cheyne and Black. Encyclopedia Biblica, New 
York and London, 1899- 1903. 

Wernle, Paul. Die Anfange unserer Religion, 
Tubingen und Leipzig, 1901. 2 Aufl., 1904. 
Eng. trans, of ist Edition, The Beginnings of 
Christianity, 2 vols., New York and London, 
1905. 

Bruckner, Martin. Die Entstehung der paulin- 
ischen Christ ologie, Strassburg, 1903. 

Volz, Paul. Judische Eschatologie, Tubingen und 
Leipzig, 1903. 

Zeitschrift f. d. neutestamentliche Wissenschaft, 
1903, 1905. 

Bousset, Wilhelm. Die Religion des Judentums, 
Berlin, 1903. 2 Aufl., 1906. 

Wrede, W. Paulus, Halle, 1904. Eng. trans., Paul, 
London, 1907. 

Schmidt, Carl. Koptisch-Gnostische Schriften, 
Leipzig, 1905. 

Zahn, Theodor. Kommentar zum Neuen Testa- 
ment. Der Brief an die Galater. Leipzig, 

1905. 



1 66 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Smith, W. B. Der vorchristliche Jesus, Giessen, 
1906. 

Weiss, Johannes. Die Schriften des Neuen Tes- 
taments, Gottingen, 1906-7. 2 AufL, 1908. 

Bousset, Wilhelm. Hauptprobleme der Gnosis, 
Gottingen, 1907. 

Julicher, Adolph. PcluIus und Jesus, Tubingen, 
1907. 

Meyer, A. Wer hat das Christentum begrundet, 
Jesus oder Paulus? Tubingen, 1907. Eng. 
trans., Jesus or Paul? London and New York, 
1909. 

Deissmann, Adolph. Licht vom Osten, Tubingen, 
1908. 2 u. 3 AufL, 1909. Eng. trans., Light 
from the Ancient East, New York and Lon- 
don, 1910. 

Bauer, Walter. Das Leben Jesu im Zeitalter der 
neutestamenttichen Apokryphen, Tubingen, 
1909. 

Burton, E. D., Smith, J. M. P., and Smith, G. B. 
Biblical Ideas of Atonement, Chicago, 1909. 

Clemen, Carl. Religionsgeschichtliche Erkldrung 
des Neuen Testaments, Giessen, 1909. Eng. 
trans., Primitive Christianity and Its Non-Jew- 
ish Sources, Edinburgh, 191 2. 

Dibelius, Martin. Die Geisterwelt im Glauben 
des Paulus, Gottingen, 1909. 

Dobschutz, Ernst v., Meyer Kritisch-exegetis- 



SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY 1 67 

cher Kommentar ilber d. N. T. Die Thessa- 

lonicher-Briefe, 7 AufL, Gottingen, 1909. 
Granbery, J. C. Outline of New Testament 

Christology, Chicago, 1909. 
Weiss, Johannes. Paulus und Jesus, Berlin, 1909. 

Eng. trans., Paul and Jesus, London and New 

York, 1909. 
Feine, Paul. Theologie des Neuen Testaments, 

Leipzig, 1910. 2 Aufl., 191 1. 
Reitzenstein, R. Die hellenistischen Mysterien- 

religionen, Leipzig und Berlin, 1910. 
Weiss, Johannes, Meyer Kritisch-exegetischer 

Kommentar uber d. N. T. Der erste Korin- 

therbrief. 9 Aufl., Gottingen, 1910. 
Zahn, Theodor. Kommentar zum Neuen Testa- 
ment. Der Brief des Paulus an die Romer. 

1 u. 2 Aufl., Leipzig, 1910. 
Weinel, Heinrich. Biblische Theologie des Neuen 

Testaments, Tubingen, 191 1. 2 Aufl., 1913. 
Case, S. J. The Historicity of Jesus, Chicago, 

1912. 



INDEX OF SCRIPTURE REFERENCES 



Matthew : 

6:12-15 100 

18 :2i-35 100 

26 :2 93 

Mark: 

14:1 93 

Luke: 

2:41 93 

22:1 93 

22:3 83 

John: 

2:13, 23 93 

6:4 93 

n:55 93 

12:1 93 

12:34 138 

13:1 93 

13:2, 27 83 

18:39 93 

19:14 93 

Acts: 

12:4 93 

Romans : 

1:1 24 

1:3 139, 141 



Romans (Cont.) : 

i:4 55 

1:8 2 

1:16 25 

1:16, 17 101, 102 

1:16—8 in 

i:i7 99 

1:18 39, 105 

1:18-23, 28 28 

1:18—3:18 22 

1:18—3:20 14, 102 

1 :20 2 

1 :25 1 

1:32 30 

2 .2-6 156 

2:3-9 40 

2:4-11 154 

2 :5, 8 39 

2:9 153 

2:12 8 

2:14 29 

2:16 156 

3:5 127 

3:5, 6, 19, 20 156 

3:5, 25, 26 25, 98, 99 

3:6 2 

3:i9 2 

3 :2i-22a 99, 102 

3:21-26 57, 58, 86 

96—110, 114 



169 



170 



INDEX OF SCRIPTURE REFERENCES 



Romans (Cont) : 
3 :22b-23 102 

3 :23 8 

3:24 25 

3 124-26 102 

3:25 8 

3 :26 99 

3:27-31 102 

4 102 

4:i3 2 

4:23-25 54 

4:24 55 

4:25 8 

5 11 

5—7 27 f 32 

5:6-11 131 

5 7, 8 24, 105 

5:8, 9 38 

5:9 39 

5:io 54, 55 

5:12 30 

5:12, 14, 16 8 

5:12-21 6, 7, 27, 47 

5:i5 56 

5:15-18, 20 8 

5:17-21 44 

5 :2i 30 

6 11 bis, 12 

6:1-14 126 

6:6 122 

6:8—10 54,55 

6:9-11 121 

6:10, 12 47 

6:12 29 

6:12-14 28 

6:12-23 28 

6 : 12-14, 22, 23 126 



Romans (Cont.) : 

6:13 29 

6:15 8 

6:15-23 127 

6:16 31 

6:16, 21, 23 30 

6:21, 23 153 

6:23 6, 24, 29, 153 

7 11 bis, 12 

7:1 12 

7:3-4 54 

7:5 29 

7 :5, 6 126 

7'S, 13 30 

7 :24, 25 14, 47 

7:25 29 

8 41-46, in 



i-4 42 

1-17 126 

2, 6, 10-14, 35-39... in 

3 29, 141 bis 

3-9 ..125 

3, 32 ... 25 

4-8 30 

9-ii 47 

10 42, 43 

11 44, 55, 151 

14-16 45 

17-19 45 

18 146 

18, 19 133 

18-39 1 19 

19-22 145 

19-23 22 

20 1 

20, 21 33 

20-25 45 



INDEX OF SCRIPTURE REFERENCES 



171 



Romans (Cont.) : 

8:21-39 47 

8:23 43 

8:26, 27 45, 143 

8:28, 29 46 

8 129 46 

8:31-39 25 

8:34 54, 55 

8:35-39 130 

8:39 24 

9:5 139 

9 :22-24 39 

10:3 99 

10:9 55 

11:25-36 14 

12 :2 15, 22 

12:19 39 

13:8-10 130 

13:11-14 148 

13:14 148 

14:9 54 

14:10 156 

I4:i5 84 

15:16 24 

I Corinthians: 

17 149 

1 :S 149 

1:9 19 

1:10 — 2:16 74 

1:13 74 

1:17, 18 74 

1 :i8, 21-23 81 

1:20 15 

1 :20, 21 80 

1 .21 2 



I Corinthians (Cont.) : 

1 :2i, 24, 30 80 

1 :22 80 

1:23, 24 74 

1 :24 81 

1 -.27, 28 2 

2 :2 74 

2:4, 5 38, 82 

2:5 80 

2:6 22, 80 

2:6, 7 80 

2:6-8 15, 56 

2.7, 8 142 

2:7-10 107 

3:5-i5 119 

3:i7 153 

3:18 15 

3 '21-23 4i 

3 :22 2 

4:5 147, 156 

4:9 2 

4 :20 82 

5:1-8 92 

5:3-5 126 

5:3-13 126 

5:4 82 

5:5 27, 39, 149, 153 

57 92 

5:10 2 

5:i3 94 

6:2, 3 2, 46, 116 

6:9 153 

6:9, 10 127, 154 

6:12-20 120 

6:14 55 

6:18 8 

6:19, 20 95, 96 



172 INDEX OF SCRIPTURE REFERENCES 



I Corinthians (Cont.) : 

6:20 94 

7:1-17, 25-40 118 

7:17-24 ll 9 

7:18-24 117 

7:23 94, 96 

7:28, 36 8 

7:29, 3i n8 

8:4 2 

8:9-13 8 

8:11 84 

8:13 130 

10:19-21 84 

10 :20 85 

10:24 — 11 :i 130 

10 :25 84 

11:17-22, 33, 34 130 

11:23-26 140 

12:1 — 13:2 128 

12:31b— 13:13 131 

13:13 I29> 132 

14:1-40 128 

14:10 2 

15:14, 17 55 

15:19, 3i, 32 132 

15 :20-23 44 

15:20-28 17, 144 

15:21, 22 ...» 6, 7 

15:23 149 

15 :24-26 33 

15 :24-28 4 

15:25, 26, 55 27 

15:28 3 

15:34 8 

15:49 46 

15:50 153, 154 

15:51-54 152 



I Corinthians (Cont.) : 

15:52 150, 151 

15:55-57 14, 152 

II Corinthians: 

1:14 149 

2:16 9 

4:4 15, 22 

4:i4 55 

4:17 133 

4:i7, 18 146 

5:10 156 

5:11 — 6:2. ..109, 111,114 

5:i4, 15 54 

5:16 140 

5:18 114 

5:18, 19 112 

5:20 113 

5 :2i 141 

7:io 2, 9 

n:3 7 

11:7 24 

12:7-10 120 

13:3-5 120 

Galatians : 

1:1 - 55 

1 :3S 61 

i:4 15, 25 

1 :6 76 

2:15-21 109, in 

2:17-21 , 121 

2:19 122 

2:20 131 

3:1-6 66 

3:2 129 

3:2-5 73 



INDEX OF SCRIPTURE REFERENCES 



173 



Galatians (Cont.) : 

3:5 ii9, 129 

3 7—47 66 

3:13 61, 64 

3:i3, 14 72 

3:14 72 

3:iS 68 

3:16 67 

4:1, 2 68 

4:2, 3 7i 

4:3 68, 69 

4:3-5 61 

4:3-7 65 

4:4 25, 139, 141 

4:4, 5 72 } 142 

4:5, 6 45, 72 

4:9, 3i 25 

4:19 121 

4:21-31 67 

5:i, 13 25 

5:8 119 

5:n 77, 139 

5:i4 • 130 

5:16-25 129 

5:16-26 12& 131 

5:19-21 127 

5 -24 30 

6:12 78 

6:12, 14 139 

6:14 77 

Ephesians : 

1 :3-23 86 

1 :4 2 

1 :9, 10 139 

1:11 87 

1:19, 20 87 



Ephesians (Cont.) : 

1:20 55 

1:20, 21 143 

1 :2i-23 87 

1 :2i 15 

2:2 22 

2:2, 7 15 

3:9 1 

4:i5 143 

4:17-24 126 

5:i, 2 131 

5:5 127 

5:8 147 

5:i6 65 

6:12 15, 24 

Philippians : 

1 :6, 10 149 

1 :20 9 

1 :28 153 

2:5-8 139 

2:5-11 143 

2 :8 139 

2:12, 13 23 

2:16 149 

2 '.27 , 30 9 

3:8b-n 146 

3:9 99 

3:io, 11 54 

3:12-14 147 

3:i9 153 

3:20, 21 44, 46 

4:11-13 120 

Colossians : 

1:3-23 86 

1 '4> 5 129 



174 



INDEX OF SCRIPTURE REFERENCES 



Colossians (Cont.) : 

i :6 2 

1:11-13 88 

1:13 •••• ••• x 47 

i:i5-i7 139 

1:15-20 1 

1:15-23 ^> 

1:17-19 143 

1:17-20 54 

1 :26, 27 89 

2:11 90 

2:15 90, 9i 

2:20 2 bis 

3 .'5-12 126 

3:9 90 

4:5 65 

I Thessalonians : 

1 :2-io .. 35 

1:2, 8, 9 24 

1 :3 129 

i:5 38 

1:10 39, 55, 158 

2:12 119 

2:14-16 78 

2:15 78, 139 

2:19 149 

2:19, 20 37 

3 :8 122 

3:12 126 

3:i3 149 

4:1-6 126 

47 119 

4:9-12 130 

4:13-18 37 

4:i4 54, 150 

4:i5 149 



I Thessalonians (Cont.) : 

4:16 149 

5:i, 2 37 

5:2, 4 149 

5:3 153 

5:4, 5 147 

5:8 129 

5:9 25, 39 

5:9, 10 , 37 

5 '23 149 

5 '-23, 24 37 

5:24 119 

II Thessalonians : 

1:3 129 

i:5-io 37, 156 

i:7 149 

1 7, 8 149 

i:7-io 155 

1 : 10 . 149 

2:1, 9 149 

2:1-12 37 

2\2 149 

2 :8 149 

3:3 119 



I Timothy: 

2:14, 15 • 

3:16 

6:14 



... 7 

.89, 91 
... 149 



II Timothy: 

1 :io 

2:8 

4:i 



Titus : 
2:13 



149 
141 
149 



149 



INDEX OF SCRIPTURE REFERENCES 



175 



Hebrews : 

2:14 ... 

11:28 ... 



I Peter: 
1:18, 19 . 

Revelation : 
5:9 



27 
93 



96 
96 



The Old Testament. 

Genesis : 
2:16, 17 7 



3:1-24 



Deuteronomy : 
247 



Job: 
28 



94 



10 



Proverbs : 
8:22-31 10 



Isaiah : 

25 7, 8 27 

25:8 152 

66:15 149 

Hosea : 
13:14 152 

Apocryphal Books. 

4 Ezra (2 Esdras) : 

3:7 8 

7:11, 12 8 

7:118 

8:53 



8 
27 



Ecclesiasticus : 
25 :24 



Testament of Levi: 
18 



27 



Baruch : 
21 .-23 27 



T 



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" The Christian world was thrilled over thirty years ago by the story 
of Dr. Clough's work. Now for the first time we have opportunity to 
study his methods, to get at the social, economic and religious principles 
which lay behind it." — W. H. Faunce, D.D., President of Brown Uni- 
versity. 

"Dr. Clough was one of the founders of the modern era in missions. 
Before him the purpose largely had been to produce a western type of 
Christianity in Oriental lands. Dr. Clough caught a vision of the 
transforming of peoples. Upon the foundation of the crude village or- 
ganization which he found he built a Christianity of Oriental type. 
His method of baptizing converts from heathenism, thousands at a time, 
on credible profession of faith in Christ, has profoundly affected the 
methods of Christianity in India and other lands. In this book we have 
a graphic description of his ideas and methods and experiences." — E. F. 
Merriam, D.D., Managing Editor of the Watchman- Examiner. 

The Gospel of Jesus and the Problems of Democracy 

By Henry C. Vedder, Professor of Church History in 
Crozer Theological Seminary and Author of '''Socialism 
and the Ethics of Jesus." "The Reformation in Ger- 
many/ 7 etc. Cloth, nmo. $1.50 net. 

"We need a reconstructed theology. The theology of all churches has 
been dominated by monarchical ideas; it needs to be recast in the mould 
of democracy; it has been permeated with ideas of social privilege such 
as were unfavorable when aristocracy ruled the world; it needs to be 
restated in terms of equal rights." These sentences from Dr. Vedder's 
preface at once show his viewpoint. The Gospel and the Awakening 
Church, The Problem of Social Justice, The Woman Problem, The 
Problem of the Child, The Problem of the Slums, The Problem of Vice, 
The Problem of Crime, The Problem of Disease, The Problem of Pov- 
erty, The Problem of Lawlessness — these are the topics of the ten 
chapters. The book is undoubtedly one of the most important con- 
tributions to the study of present day religion that has yet been pub- 
lished. 

PUBLISHED BY 

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

Publishers 64-86 Fifth Avenue New York 



NEW BOOKS ON RELIGION 



The Man of Nazareth 



By FREDERICK L. ANDERSON 

Cloth, i2tno, $1.00 net 

This is a study of the life of Christ written not for theologians, but 
for the average man and woman. The most important problems about 
Jesus and his career and the conditions of his time are related with a 
simplicity that will commend the book to those who find so much of 
religious writing vague and unsatisfactory. Dr. Anderson has not 
sought to solve disputed questions, but rather to present in a clear 
light the broad and generally accepted facts of the Saviour's life, and 
while there is no ponderous show of learning the volume is undoubt- 
edly the result of many years of hard study and application to the 
subject. 

Live and Learn 

By WASHINGTON GLADDEN 

Cloth, i2tno, $1,00 net 

An exceedingly practical little book is this one in which the distin- 
guished clergyman and writer seeks to impress upon his readers the 
necessity of getting possession of themselves. Learning how to see, 
how to think, how to speak, how to hear, how to give, how to serve, 
how to win and how to wait — these are the author's themes. The 
chapters are interesting because of the happy fashion in which Dr. 
Gladden clothes his thoughts ; they are valuable in that they contain 
the wise counsel of a mature mind in which are arranged and stored 
the products of a long experience. The work is especially suited to 
young people — of the high school age, for example. It will assist 
them to obtain and maintain a proper adjustment toward life. It will, 
however, be read with no less profit by all whose minds are open, who 
are willing to learn, whether they be sixteen or sixty. 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York 



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